Glass 
Book 



THE 



HISTORY 

OF 

OTTOMAN EMPIRE 



FROM THE 



EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME. 



BY WILLIAM DEANS 



A. FULLARTON & CO., 

106 NEWGATE STKEET, LONDON; AND 
44 SOUTH BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. 

1854. 



7 



EDINBURGH : 
tfULLARTON AND MACNAB, PRINTERS, LK1TH WALK. 



PREFACE. 



To write a complete history of the Turkish people, and of 
the empire founded by Othman, would involve an amount 
of labour which would occupy many years, and such a 
work would necessarily extend over many volumes. The 
following pages have no such pretensions. But at the 
present crisis, when the attention of the civilized world is 
anxiously directed to the contest in which the Turks are 
engaged, it has been considered desirable that a work 
embracing a condensed view of their history, in a form 
easily accessible, should be given to the public. This the 
author has attempted. 

Early historians have written accounts of the origin and 
wars of the Turks, and of their first settlement in Europe; 
and there exist numerous histories of particular reigns or 
epochs, together with many valuable surveys and detached 
accounts of the Ottoman empire. To these may be added 
the voluminous works of travellers and foreign residents 
of respectability and talents, whose opinions are as con- 
flicting as their works are numerous. The historians of 
Europe have not passed in silence the Turkish annals; 



iv 



PREFACE. 



but so far as the author of the following pages is aware, 
there is no continuous history of the Ottoman Empire 
available to the general reader. 

In the compilation of the following history, the author 
has consulted those writers whose works have received the 
sanction of public opinion; and although he has been able 
only to depict the leading features of Turkish history, he 
hopes that the work now given to the public will not be 
uninteresting. 

LEITH, PlRNJEFIELD HOUSE, 

July, 1854. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS, . . . . . 1 

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE TURKS, ... 8 

OTHMAN, . . . . . . . 12 

CAUSES OF TURKISH GREATNESS. . . . . 13 

ORCHAN, ... . . . . 17 

AMURATH, . . . . . . . 18 

BAJAZET, . . . . . , 19 

AMURATH II., . . . . . . 2(5 

MAHOMET, . . . . . . 30 

BAJAZET II., . . . . • i . 42 

SELIM, ....... 45 

SOLIMAN, ........ 48 

SELIM II., ...... 67 

AMURATH HI., ...... 85 

MAHOMET III. AND AC'HMET I., . . . • . 86 

MUSTAPHA, ...... 86 

OTHMAN H., . . . . . . 87 

AMURATH IV., . . . . . 87 

IBRAHIM, . . . . . 89 

MUHAMMED IV., ...... 92 



VI CONTENTS. 

SOLIMAN II., . . • • • • 107 

ACHMET II., . . • • • .109 

MUSTAPHA II., . . . . * 113 

ACHMET III,, . . . • • • 116 

SKETCH OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, . . . • 129 

MAHMOUD I., . . . . • .134 

OTHMAN III., . . . . • .143 

MUSTAPHA III., . . . . . • 144 

ABDUL HAMID, . . . . . . 158 

SELIM IH., ....... 165 

SKETCH OP EGYPT, . . . . . 173 

FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT, . . . . 177 

selim in. (continued) . . . . .186 

MUSTAPHA IV., . . . . . 196 

MAHMOUD II., . . . . . .197 

REVOLUTION IN GREECE, . . . . . 226 

NEGOCIATIONS WITH RUSSIA — DESTRUCTION OF THE JANIZARIES, 267 

WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29, . . . . 273 

REBELLION OF MAHOMET ALI, . . . .295 

RUSSIAN AGGRESSION THE PRESENT W AR, , . 302 

GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND CHARACTER OF 

THE TURKS, . . . ... 308 



THE 



HISTORY 

OF 

OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 

The astonishing rapidity with which a people whose origin 
is veiled in obscurity, started upon the scene of history, and 
by the extent of their conquests, caused such decided and 
permanent changes in Europe, places the Turks before us as 
a remarkable nation. Nor have their conquests been tran- 
sient. Under the- name of Ottomans, they have subdued to 
their dominion the fairest and most fertile portions of Asia 
and Europe, and they retain, in the midst of civilization, the 
primitive habits and manners brought with them from the 
mountains of Turkistan. While other nations in Europe 
have been gradually advancing in science, literature, and the 
arts, this people, until very lately, have despised every im- 
provement that did not administer to their arrogance and 
sensuality. 

Although the Ottoman empire has continued to recede for 
upwards of 150 years, during that period they have maintained 
many long and bloody wars with their powerful neighbours 
the Russians and Austrians; and independent of many external 
disasters, and the influence of long- continued internal oppres- 
sion, they have often risen from the shock which seemed fatal 
to their cause, and they continue to hold their independence 
with vigour and tenacity. But even after this long period of 
decay, the world hardly affords a nobler empire than that 
which is swayed by the descendants of Othman. Bounded 

A 



2 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



by the Euphrates on the east, the Mediterranean or the 
Libyan deserts on the south, the Adriatic on the west, and 
the Ukraine on the north, it numbers amongst its inland 
streams the Nile, the Danube, and the Euphrates, and in- 
cludes the cities of Egypt, of Nineveh, of Babylon, and Con- 
stantinople. It enjoys every advantage which the bounty 
of nature can accumulate. The vine, the olive, the orange 
and citron adorn its slopes. The oak and the pine nourish 
on its mountains, and wheat, maize and rice wave on its 
plains, supplying, almost without the aid of the husband- 
man, everything that administers to the wants, the comforts 
or the luxury of man. But blasted by the despotism of 
the east and the rigidity of Mahometan rule, all these 
blessings have not been able to stop the progress of 
internal as well as external decay. — An empire so extensive, 
and embracing provinces so remote, necessarily includes 
many different races and sects of people. Everywhere a 
half, in some places two-thirds, of the population of the 
empire are Christians; and nations and sects of all ima- 
ginable varieties compose the inferior classes of the Ottoman 
empire. The merchants are nearly all Greeks or Armenians, 
the sailors islanders from the Archipelago, the money lenders 
Jews, and the cultivators of the soil, generally descendants of 
the inhabitants of the old Greek empire. Yet three millions 
of Turks in Europe, and perhaps four millions in Asia retain 
all this heterogeneous population in subjection, and compel 
them to labour and pay taxes for the support of their govern- 
ment. The only parallel to this which the world exhibits, is 
the sway maintained by a much smaller number of British 
over the immense population of the Indian peninsula. 

Although the Ottoman empire is still vast and extensive, 
it no longer attracts the fear of its neighbours. Neither 
the wisdom of its councils nor the valour of its forces are 
respected or feared in Europe. But the splendour of its 
former exploits and the celebrity of its ancient character 
arrest the attention of mankind. It is true that the wars 
of the Turks were disgraced by perfidy and stained by 
violence; but they exhibited such energy in pursuit and 
brilliancy in success that their claim to national pre- 
eminence for centuries stood undisputed. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



3 



While the social condition of the Turks, supported by 
every prejudice that can influence their manners, and con- 
firmed by the inveterate habit of ages, may excite the pity 
or contempt of the Christian states, the maxims of their 
policy, and the injustice of their government, sanctioned 
alike by religion and law, have often incurred the indigna- 
tion of Europe. The rapid progress of civilization, which 
during the last four centuries has so completely altered 
the civil and political institutions of the Western states, 
has made little perceptible progress in Turkey; and every 
discovery, whether in arts or science, which has contributed 
to the happiness and the power of man, has been obstinately 
resisted by the followers of Mahomet. 

National prejudices strongly influence mankind. The 
patriotic mind may cling to the institutions of its country, 
and resist every encroachment tending to shake a fabric that 
has become venerable by the lapse of ages ; — but experience 
dissipates prejudices; and measures suggested by experience, 
calculated to ameliorate the condition of the people and to 
facilitate the progress of national improvement, will be readily 
adopted by every enlightened government. The policy of 
the Turks ever has been to resist innovation. Incapable of 
overcoming their national prejudices and of breaking the 
fetters which an uncompromising and sanguinary religion 
imposed upon them, they have remained a monument of 
social and political degradation. For three centuries after 
their settlement in Europe, the martial discipline and religious 
enthusiasm of the Turks, and the energy of their character, 
rendered them not only powerful but dangerous to the inde- 
pendence of Europe. At the period of the Ottoman invasion 
the Christian states were sunk to the lowest point of ignorance 
and political disorder, and were incapable of resisting the 
Turkish arms. Three centuries of conquest completed the 
period of Ottoman greatness; since then it has suffered a 
gradual decay. Such is the influence of religion, science, and 
learning on national fortunes, that those conquerors who 
nearly accomplished the overthrow of Christendom, are now 
protected and maintained in Europe by the arms of the Chris- 
tian powers. 

Many circumstances contributed to put an end to the 



4 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 



ascendency of the Turkish empire. After the taking of 
Constantinople by the Turks in a. d. 1543, the Greeks took 
shelter in Italy, and imported a tincture of their science and 
of their refined taste in poetry and eloquence; and the 
esteem for literature gradually propagated itself throughout 
every nation in Europe. The art of printing invented about 
this time extremely facilitated the progress of all these im- 
provements. The invention of gunpowder changed the art of 
war. Many innovations were soon made in religion, which 
greatly affected those that embraced them ; and thus a general 
revolution was made in human affairs throughout this part of 
the world, and nations gradually attained that situation with 
regard to commerce, arts, science, police and cultivation in 
which they have ever since progressed. 

The Turks, on the other hand, obstinately adhered to the 
barbarous maxims of their civil and religious institutions ; and 
the arrogance of their character led them to resist all those 
improvements which so rapidly encouraged the civilization, 
and increased the power of Europe. The laws of war and 
maxims of policy brought with them from the Scythian 
deserts, or drawn from the Koran, began to render them 
odious to the civilized states; and they have not without 
reason been condemned for the illiberality, injustice, and 
feebleness of their government, the rudeness of their institu- 
tions, and the degradation to which they have fallen as a 
nation. 

In the wars of the Turks they followed the policy of their 
Scythian forefathers; and in the triumph of their arms, it 
does not appear that they abused the rights of conquest be- 
yond their traditional maxims, and the precepts of their 
religion and laws. Nor were the states of Europe more 
humane in the hour of victory ; but w T hile the laws of war 
by which the Christian powers are now regulated, partake of 
the progressive civilization of the age, the cruel maxims of 
the Scythian conquerors, and the sanguinary precepts of 
the prophet, have maintained, until lately, their ascendency 
over the Turkish mind. 

In order that we may form some idea of the character of 
their warfare, it is necessary to glance at the policy pursued 
by some of the most remarkable of the Scythian conquerors. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



5 



The Scythians were uniformly actuated by a savage and de- 
structive spirit. The laws of war that restrain the exercise 
of national rapine and murder, are founded upon principles of 
national interest ; but considerations of justice, of hope and 
of fear are almost unknown in the pastoral state of nations. 
The idea of permanent benefit by a moderate use of con- 
quest — the fear that the desolation they inflict may be re- 
taliated upon themselves — are considerations too delicate 
for the savage state. 

After the Moguls had subdued the northern provinces of 
China, it was seriously proposed, not in the hour of victory 
and passion, but in a calm deliberate council, to exterminate 
all the inhabitants of that populous country, that the vacant 
land might be converted to the pasture of cattle. In the 
cities of Asia which yielded to the Moguls, the inhuman abuse 
of the rights of war was exercised with a regular form of 
discipline, The inhabitants of the conquered cities were as- 
sembled in a plain in the neighbourhood, and formed into 
three divisions, and were massacred on the spot by the troops, 
who had formed a circle round the captive multitudes. Many 
of the women were sold into slavery, and subjected to the 
most brutal violence. A few of the youth selected from the 
multitude were dragged into the armies of the conquerors. 
Such was the behaviour of the Moguls when they were not 
conscious of any extraordinary rigour. The most casual 
provocation often involved the whole people in an indis- 
criminate massacre. Flourishing cities and towns were 
levelled with unrelenting perseverance. The three great 
cities of Khorasin, Maru, Nisabour, and Herat, were de- 
stroyed by the arms of Zinghis ; and the number of the 
slain, of which an exact account was taken, amounted to 
four millions three hundred and forty-seven thousand per- 
sons. Tamerlane was educated at a later period, and in the 
profession of the Mahometan religion, yet his brutal ravages 
exceeded those of Attila or Zinghis ; " and," says Gibbon, 
" both the Tartar and the Hun are justly entitled to the 
epithet of the ' Scourge of God/ 99 

Although neither national nor individual barbarity can ad- 
mit of any excuse ; yet if we consider the revolutions and 
wars of modern states which are justly entitled to the terms 



6 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



civilized and polite, and consider the inhuman massacres 
and wasting desolations which have accompanied them, we 
will look upon the ravages of the Turks with greater for- 
bearance ; and when it is recollected that the maxims of 
their religion and the example of the prophet himself, directed 
them to conquest, and to the subjugation and conversion 
of the infidels, their wars, to them at least, had a divine 
sanction. 

The lust of conquest, when associated with religious fanati- 
cism, has been the greatest scourge of the human race. It 
must however be acknowledged that civilization has some- 
times accompanied the standard of the conqueror. Wars 
that have been undertaken in the name of religion, have served 
only to desolate the earth with blood ; and their infamy 
alone, as a lesson to mankind, renders them worthy of re- 
cord. The history of the world can exhibit no such examples 
of cruelty and wickedness as those committed under the in- 
fluence of fanaticism ; and the warrior who unfurls his banner 
in the cause of heaven, readily finds an excuse for every 
enormity that a savage heroism can suggest. The sieges of 
Antioch, Jerusalem, and Acre by the Crusaders are proofs 
of this remark. Many instances — perhaps of a less strik- 
ing kind, but not less cruel and barbarous — might be 
enumerated to show the ferocity engendered by religious 
warfare. The wars of the Turks, it must be remarked, were 
for the most part aggressive, and therefore of the most un- 
justifiable kind; but they do not exhibit more instances 
of wanton cruelty than the wars of other nations at the same 
period. If we be desirous of forming a correct judgment of 
the Turkish character, as exhibited through a long period of 
conquest, we must judge of them by comparison, and not by 
any standard of abstract virtue. 

The Turks have long ceased to be aggressors ; their more 
recent wars having been in self-defence or to crush their re- 
bellious subjects. That which is now being waged against 
them has no parallel in the history of their aggressions. It 
has arisen through the influence of hereditary ambition 
directed towards territorial aggrandisement, and it has been 
conducted by cunning, cruelty, and falsehood : and this too, 
in an age of an advanced civilization, when some statesmen 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



7 



and politicians had thought that war would no longer stain 
the history of man, and that the reign of reason and true re- 
ligion had assumed the empire of the human mind. This 
inoffensive delusion had taken hold of the minds of some of 
our legislators, who upon many occasions have distinguished 
themselves in the House of Commons alike by their wisdom 
and eloquence, who have been followed by a multitude of 
weak and credulous people, ever ready to seize any chimera 
that may be adopted by their political leaders, at a time when 
schemes of a most unparalleled description were being hatched 
and developed by a northern power, for the partition and 
annihilation of an independent empire. 

The wars of Kussia and Turkey, always stirred up by 
Russia through the influence of a traditional idea of conquest, 
and covered by a cloak of religion, have been invariably di- 
rected by the most wanton cruelty. A general to whom a 
modern historian has assigned a place scarcely second to the 
greatest warriors of ancient or modern times, commanded 
the Russian army in 1789, and in the storming and sack of 
Ismail, thirty thousand persons, of whom one-half were in- 
habitants of the town, were put to the sword : fifteen thou- 
sand were made prisoners, and for the most part sold as slaves, 
and transported to the country of the conquerors. But the 
storming of Praga and Warsaw, stamps a still darker stain on 
the Russian nation, and fully illustrates the savage character 
of these Christian aggressors. Ten thousand soldiers and 
twelve thousand citizens of every age and sex fell amid the 
flames of the capital and by the swords of the conquerors ; 
and the Vistula literally ran red with Christian blood. The 
panegyrist of Suwaroff says that " he was not only a general 
of the very highest order, but he was a man of a character 
and turn of mind peculiar to Russia, and which belong per- 
haps exclusively to the Sclavonic race." The campaigns of 
Suwaroff exhibit little beyond the energy and ferocity of 
savage warfare ; and he cannot be said to have possessed 
either the military genius, or those qualities which constitute 
a great warrior, in the same degree with many of his Tartar 
ancestors, whose dress, habits and manners he affected. 
Under the disguise of a mere buffoon, he concealed the 
cunning and finesse of the Muscovite character ; and either 



8 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



through ignorance, hypocrisy, or superstition, he employed a 
kind of religious fanaticism to fortify his own bravery per- 
haps, and to excite the courage of his soldiers. Every one 
acquainted with the semi-savage state, knows how closely this 
description of character is allied to it ; and if we consider 
SuwarofF as a type of the nation, Eussia will not suffer by 
the comparison ; but Europe has yet to learn whether the 
soldiers of the Czar have not lost some of the fearless energy 
of the conqueror of Ismail. 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE TURKS. 

The Turks claim their descent from Turc, the eldest of the 
sons of Japhet, who is represented as the progenitor of the 
Tartars and Huns. The founder of that martial people was 
suckled by a wolf, and like Romulus afterwards became the 
father of a numerous progeny ; and the representation of that 
animal on the banners of the Turks preserved the memory, or 
rather suggested the idea, of a fable, which was invented 
without any mutual intercourse by the shepherds of Latium 
and those of Scythia. These tribes occupied the great plains 
on the north of China, India, and Persia, between the Caspian 
and the sea of Japan, the cradle of those multitudinous 
nations, whose names, as Chateaubriand has said, "are known 
only to Grod, v and whose path to civilized plunder was marked 
with blood. These immense regions, including an eighth of 
the land- surface of the globe, are now nearly desolate. The 
vast steppes of central Asia, the fertile and romantic slopes of 
the Altai, the great valley of the Amour, fit to contain all 
Christendom in affluence, and those trackless wilds stretch- 
ing towards the Northern ocean, are thinly inhabited by 
about two to the square mile, while Siberia, many parts of 
which rival even Europe in the richness of its soil and the 
magnificence of its scenery, is doomed to be the home of 
European suffering and exile. Traces, however, are to be 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 



9 



fourfe, indicating that a numerous population had at one 
period inhabited those remote regions. 

In the early history of these countries, new conquerors 
continually succeeded each other ; but it is easier for bar- 
barians to conquer a state than to found and maintain a new 
empire ; and if new kingdoms arose with rapidity, they fell as 
quickly into ruins. Some, however, among the numerous 
hordes which successively prevailed, established a lasting 
name. The different branches of the Tartars from the north, 
and the Arabians from the south, carried their arms over 
extensive regions, and formed great and permanent empires. 

The name Scythian or Tartar has been generally applied 
to the inhabitants of those deserts and mountains, spreading 
from China to the Danube ; and whether of similar or of dif- 
ferent origin, have at various times poured out their vast 
swarms on all the surrounding countries. The Turks are a 
tribe of those Tartars. 

The Altai mountains, which occupy the centre of Asia, at 
an equal distance from the Caspian, the Icy, the Chinese, and 
the Bengal seas, were productive of minerals ; and the iron 
forges for the purposes of war were wrought by the Turks, 
the most despised portion of the slaves of the great Khan of 
the Geougen. But their servitude could only last till a 
leader, bold and eloquent, should arise to lead them to free- 
dom and victory. Such a leader appeared, and he sallied 
from the mountains at the head of the tribe. A sceptre was 
his reward ; -and the annual ceremony, in which a piece of 
iron was heated in the tire, and a smith's hammer was suc- 
cessively handled by the prince and his nobles, recorded for 
ages the humble profession and rational pride of the Turkish 
nation. Bertezena, their first leader, signalized their valour 
and his own in successful combats against the neighbouring 
tribes ; and a decisive battle, which almost extirpated the 
nation of the Geougen, established in Tartary, a. d. 545, the 
new and more powerful empire of the Turks. Faithfully 
attached to the mountains of their fathers, the royal en- 
campment was seldom far removed from Mount Altai. The 
emperors throne was turned towards the east, and a golden 
wojf on the top of a spear, seemed to guard the entrance 
of his tent. Their religion was characteristic of the primi- 



10 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



tive and warlike habits of the Turkish tribes. The honours 
of sacrifice were reserved for the supreme deity ; they ac- 
knowledged in rude hymns, their obligations to the air, the 
fire, the water, and the earth ; and their priests derived some 
profit from the art of divination. Their laws were rigor- 
ous and impartial : theft was punished by a tenfold resti- 
tution ; adultery, treason, and murder with death ; and no 
chastisement could be inflicted too severe for the inexpiable 
guilt of cowardice. As the subject nations marched under 
the standard of the Turks, their armies rapidly increased, and 
were proudly computed by millions ; and in less than fifty 
years they were connected in peace and war with the 
Romans, the Persians, and the Chinese. Their empire ex- 
tended towards the east and north to Kamtschatka and 
within ten degrees of the polar circle. Their most impor- 
tant conquest in the south was that of the Nepthalites or 
White Huns, a polite and warlike people, who possessed the 
important cities of Bochara and Samarcand, and who had 
carried their arms to the banks of the Indus. China was in- 
vaded and subdued ; but the Turks, enervated by luxury, 
always fatal to a barbarous people, the vanquished nations 
resumed their independence, and the power of the Turks in 
China was limited to a period of two hundred years. In 
their rapid career of conquest, the Turks attacked the Ogars 
on the banks of the Till : their chief with three hundred 
thousand of his subjects were slain ; and a small portion, pre- 
ferring exile to servitude, pursued the road to the Volga. 
After a long and victorious march they arrived at the foot of 
Mount Caucasus, the country of the Alani and Circassians, 
w T here they first heard of the splendour and weakness of 
the Roman empire. This fugitive tribe sent an ambassador, 
by the Euxine, to Constantinople, who was admitted to an 
audience with Justinian the Roman emperor, A. D. 558. He 
introduced himself as the representative of a powerful people 
willing and able to destroy his enemies, and asked from the 
emperor as a reward, precious gifts, subsidies, and posses- 
sions. The instruments of luxury were prepared to capti- 
vate the barbarian ; silken garments, soft and splendid beds, 
and chains and collars of gold. The ambassador departed 
from Constantinople ; and the barbarian tribes were easily 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 



11 



tempted to invade the enemies of Rome. These fugitives, 
who fled before the Turkish arms, passed the Tanais and 
Borysthenes ; and before ten years had elapsed their camps 
were pitched on the Danube and the Elbe. 

The Ogars, under the more famous appellation of Avers, 
swept over the Polish and German plains like a deluge. 
Many of the Sclavonian and Bulgarian names were obliter- 
ated from the earth, and the remainder of their tribes are 
found as tributaries and vassals under the standard of the 
Avers. But they could not elude the jealousy and resent- 
ment of the Turks, whose ambassadors followed the foot- 
steps of the vanquished to the Yolga, Mount Caucasus, the 
Euxine, and Constantinople, and at last appeared before 
the successor of Constantine, to request that he would not 
espouse the cause of rebels and fugitives. The emperor 
renounced the Avers, and accepted the alliance of the 
Turks ; and a treaty was carried by a Roman minister to 
the foot of Mount Altai, 561. 

The Romans experienced considerable advantages by their 
alliance with the Turks, whose powerful diversions on the 
Oxus against the Persians, their common enemy, w T ere fre- 
quent and successful. But this extensive empire was not of 
long duration. The princes of the blood who were ap- 
pointed to the government of its distant provinces, threw off 
their allegiance, and the vanquished tribes were encouraged 
by the government of China in resuming their independence. 
Many of the Turkish chiefs obtained other thrones and more 
wealthy dominions. The family of Samanee usurped the 
sovereignty of Persia, who w r ere in their turn overthrown, 
and succeeded by that of Ghizni. The Persian empire had 
been long ruled by the descendants of Mahomet, who were 
nominally subject to the Saracen Kalifs ; and Mahmood, 
one of those governors, having extended his empire from 
the Caspian sea to the Indus, was invested by the Kalifs 
with the title of Sultan. Upon the succession of his son 
Massud, in the year 1038, a body of Turks under Tongruel 
obtained possession of that kingdom. New hordes of Tar- 
tars, stirred up by their own wants and the persuasion of 
Zinghis, overthrew their neighbouring tribes, passed the 
Caucasus and Mount Taurus, which had so long shut up this 



12 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



rough and savage people, and descending from the sterile 
regions of the north, as it were upon another world, bore 
down everything that opposed them, and the Turks were 
driven out of Persia, after having held that country for 170 
years. In the general flight, Cursumes, the last of the 
kings of the Seljukian line that had reigned over them in 
Persia, died, and his son taking command of such of the 
Turks as followed his father, seized Babylon, and attempted 
to settle there, but they were pursued by the Tartars, and 
the kingdom founded by Tongruel was finally extinguished 
about the year 1202. The Turks, thus driven out of Persia, 
retired into lesser Asia, and taking advantage of the discord 
of the Latins and the Greeks, and of the Greeks among 
themselves, established the kingdoms of Kerman, Syria, and 
Roum. 

The kingdom of Eoum, in which the others eventually 
merged, extended from the Euphrates to Constantinople, and 
from the Black sea to the confines of Syria, with Nice for its 
capital ; and Soliman, its first Sultan, entered into a treaty of 
peace with Alexius Comnenus, by which his conquests were 
confirmed to him. But his successor was assailed by the 
Crusaders, and the battle of Dorylseum stript him of all his 
territories from Trebisond to the Syrian gate. After the loss 
of Nice the royal residence was removed to Iconium, a small 
inland town, about 300 miles from Constantinople. Here the 
successors of Soliman continued to reign for nearly a century 
and a half, until overwhelmed in the general wreck by the 
ravages of Zinghis and his successors. The fragments of the 
monarchy were seized by the emirs or governors of the 
provinces. One of these emirs was Othman, the founder of 
the Ottoman empire. 



OTHMAN", 

Grandson of Soliman, was of the tribe of the Oguzian 
Turkomans. His territory was but of small extent compared 
with the other governments which surrounded him, but it 
formed the nucleus of a mighty kingdom. 

The civil broils between the elder and younger Androni- 



CAUSES OF TURKISH GREATNESS. 



13 



cus, which at this period agitated the Byzantine empire, 
opened up to Othman a wide field of enterprise. The Asiatic 
subjects of the Greeks being left to their own resources, 
became an easy prey to the arms of the Ottoman chief ; and 
he pushed his conquests over the greater part of Bithynia. 
Othman established his residence at Neapolis, about 20 
miles from Nice, and assumed the prerogatives of royalty. 
He coined money, and caused his name to be used in the 
public prayers. 

The Christian princes, alarmed at the progress of Othman, 
endeavoured, by one decisive effort, to crush the rising power 
of the ambitious Turk. The hostile armies met on the 
confines of Phrygia. Othman was victorious. The city of 
Brusa submitted to his son Orchan, who in the year 1318 
made it the seat of the Ottoman government. The name 
of Othman is held in high estimation by the Turks ; but 
modern writers allege that his glory is chiefly founded on 
that of his descendants. 

This chief has been described as a shepherd and a robber ; 
but if we admit the description, we must separate from these 
characters all idea of ignominy and baseness. He appears to 
have united the skill and valour of the warrior to the wisdom 
and prudence of the statesman. By a%ust, merciful, and 
impartial administration, he reconciled the conquered Chris- 
tians to his government, and many who fled before his arms, 
returned to enjoy safety and repose under his protection. 



CAUSES OF TURKISH GREATNESS. 

In the character and exploits of Othman, we discover the 
operation of those principles which conducted his successors 
to such a height of grandeur and power. The precepts of 
the Koran enjoined them to convert or exterminate the in- 
fidels ; and thus the propagation of their religion led to the 
desire of universal conquest, and they promised to themselves 
the empire of the world. The extraordinary vanity of the 
Turks, and their remarkable union in religion and matters 
of state, formed the basis of their power. To their vigilance 
in taking advantage of every opportunity of enlarging their 



14 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



empire, they united courage, frugality, and temperance. The 
preservation of their military discipline engaged the continual 
attention of the Sultans ; and the soldiers and the people ex- 
hibited a degree of cheerfulness, obedience, and devotion to 
their sovereigns, rarely equalled, at least never surpassed. 
All those excitements which add energy to a people, were 
held out to the Turks. The obedient was rewarded and 
the offender punished ; a price was set upon valour and 
virtue, and the way laid open, through which every person 
might aspire to the greatest preferments in the state. On 
the other hand, the cowardly and disloyal might expect 
from the same sovereign power, nothing but disgrace, torture, 
and death. 

During the dark ages, the Christian states, governed by 
courtiers, priests, or women, displayed no trace of intellectual 
energy. Their feudal governments, their improvident care- 
lessness and discord, their ignorance of political economy, 
and their want of system in military and financial arrange- 
ments, rendered them individually weak and contemptible. 
The knowledge of general politics and mutual alliances being 
unknown, they never could be consolidated into a powerful 
confederacy. It was then that the Turks exhibited a superior 
brilliancy of character, and established a mighty and ex- 
tensive empire. Their ardent temperament was inflamed by 
the precepts of the Koran ; and they were led by chiefs of 
singular ambition and skill. The Ottoman empire continued 
to be governed by a succession of Sultans of remarkable 
talents, with scarcely a single exception, from Othman I. to 
the death of Soliman, embracing a period of nearly 300 
years, which adds a lustre to the Turkish annals to which 
there is scarcely a parallel. 

But amongst that long array of mighty princes we seek 
in vain for the benefactors or instructors of mankind. In 
almost every country there have been reigns or epochs 
stained with civil blood, and marked with lasting disgrace ; 
but in Turkey a tyrannical and corrupt system has been 
transmitted from the origin of the nation to their latest 
posterity, confirmed by law, and sanctioned by those who 
are esteemed to be the priests of God. Science, literature, 
and commerce, and even the physical comforts of mankind, 



CAUSES OF TURKISH GREATNESS. 



15 



have been disregarded by the Turks; and their empire 
exhibits a remarkable instance of the extinction of genius 
and learning by the existence of corrupt institutions and 
the baneful effects of a thoroughly despotic government. 

The education and discipline of the Turkish soldiers were 
of a singular kind, but at the same time well calculated to 
train up a race of hardy veterans. From the time of Orchan 
and the first Amurath, the Sultans were persuaded that to 
maintain the government of the sword, it is necessary in each 
generation to renew the soldiers; and that such soldiers 
must be sought, not in effeminate Asia, but among the hardy 
natives of Europe. The provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, 
Albania, Bulgaria, and Servia became the nursery of the 
Turkish army ; and when the royal fifth of the captives was 
diminished by the consumpt of war, an inhuman tax of the 
fifth child, of every fifth year, was rigorously levied on the 
Christian families. At the age of twelve or fourteen the 
most robust of the youth were torn from their parents ; their 
names were enrolled in a book ; and from that moment they 
were clothed, taught, and maintained for the public service. 
It was the first care of their masters to instruct them in 
the Turkish language ; their bodies were exercised by every 
labour that could fortify their strength. They learned to 
wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with the bow and after- 
wards with the musket; till they were drafted into the 
companies of the Janizaries and severely trained to the 
military discipline of the order. In four successive schools, 
the art of horsemanship and of darting the javelin were 
their daily exercise, while those of a more studious cast 
applied themselves to the study of the Koran, and the know- 
ledge of the Arabic and Persian tongues. As they advanced 
in seniority and merit, they were gradually dismissed to 
military, to civil and even ecclesiastical employments. By 
slow and painful steps of education they gradually rose to 
the first honours of the empire. Each man was measured 
by the standard of his individual power, the sovereign 
having the boundless liberty of choice. The Ottomans 
were trained to abstinence and action and to habits of sub- 
mission. The same spirit was diffused among the troops. 
Their silence, sobriety, patience and modesty are the theme 



16 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



of praise even by their enemies. Victory with such troops 
could not be doubtful in a struggle with the armies of 
Europe, contaminated with the vices of intemperance and 
disorder, and the mutinous and independent spirit of chivalry. 

The predominant features in the Turkish character are 
the natural consequences of their religion; and no institu- 
tion, either civil or religious, perhaps ever exercised such a 
powerful influence on national fortune. Previous to the 
conquest of Persia by the Turks, the religion of Mahomet 
arose in the deserts of Arabia, and it was propagated with 
remarkable rapidity throughout Asia and Africa. By the 
fanaticism of his religion, as well as by the terror of his sword, 
the success of the prophet was remarkable and rapid. Within 
200 years after his death the Mahometan empire was ex- 
tended by his successors over the north of Africa, and 
great part of Asia; they had overrun almost all Spain, and 
entered Sicily, Italy, and France. The mandates of their 
spiritual despotism issued from the city of Bagdad, the 
capital of their empire. The commanders of the faithful 
were not exempted from human passions. They acquired 
habits of baseness and luxury, and their power fell under the 
sword of more hardy competitors. Even Mahomet himself 
was not capable of maintaining the sublime forbearance he 
had taught in the early part of his career; he deviated from 
the celestial spirit of the Christian doctrines, which he at 
first inculcated, and stamped his religion with the alloy 
of mortality. No doctrine could have been so well calcu- 
lated as predestination to hurry forward in a wild career 
of conquest a set of ignorant and predatory soldiers. The 
assurance of booty if they survived, and paradise if they fell 
— a paradise in which were combined all the luxuries and 
pleasures which an eastern imagination could conceive — 
addressed itself to the cupidity and passions of his followers. 
It rendered almost irresistible the Moslem arms ; but it like- 
wise contained the poison which was to destroy their domi- 
nion. From the moment the successors of the prophet 
ceased to be aggressors and conquerors, the doctrine of 
predestination began its baneful work. Enervated by peace, 
and the sensuality permitted by the Koran, the Moslem 
regards every reverse as predestined by Allah, and inevitable. 



ORCHAN. 



17 



The crescent continues to wane before the cross, and exists 
in Europe where it was once so mighty, only by the suffer- 
ance of the great Christian powers, probably ere long to 
furnish another illustration that " they who take the sword 
shall perish with the sword." 



ORCHAN. 

Orchan succeeded his father Othman, a. d. 1326, and from 
his conquest of Brusa, we may date the true era of the Otto- 
man empire. The Seljukian coin was changed for the name 
and impression of the new dynasty ; and the city assumed 
the appearance of a Mahometan capital. Brusa was adorned 
with a splendid mosque, hospital, and academy ; and his skil- 
ful professors attracted students from Persia and Arabia. 
Formerly the Turkish troops consisted of cavalry, who fought 
without either pay or discipline ; but Orchan established and 
trained a regular body of infantry. He also enrolled a body 
of volunteers to whom he gave pay, and he educated and 
trained his young captives as soldiers of the prophet. By 
these means he raised an army of twenty-five thousand 
disciplined troops. He also caused to be framed a train of 
battering engines for the use of sieges. Orchan was an am- 
bitious and daring prince, and he promoted the designs of 
his father with success. He laid siege to the cities of Nice 
and Nicomedia, which quickly fell before his arms. He de- 
feated the Christians under Andronicus the younger in a 
sanguinary engagement ; and he subdued the whole pro- 
vince or kingdom of Bithynia as far as the shores of the 
Bosphorus and Hellespont. 

The Turks under Soliman, the son of Orchan, in the year 
1353, first established themselves in Europe. Soliman, at the 
head of ten thousand horse, was transported in vessels pre- 
pared for the purpose, and entertained at Constantinople as 
the friend of the Greek emperor, and the Chersonesus was in- 
sensibly filled with a Turkish colony. Gallipoii, the key of 
the Hellespont, had been thrown down by an earthquake, but 
it was quickly rebuilt and repeopled by the policy of Soliman. 
Orchan did not long survive the triumphs of his policy and 

B 



18 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



arms. His son Soliman was killed by a fall from his horse ; 
and the aged monarch wept and expired on his tomb, in the 
year 1359. 



AMU RATH. 

Amurath, the son of Orchan, and brother of Soliman, suc- 
ceeded to the sceptre. The Greeks had little reason to rejoice 
in the death of Orchan, for Amurath wielded the scimitar 
with equal spirit and effect. He overran the province of 
Thrace from the Hellespont to Mount Haemus, and Adrianople 
was chosen for the seat of his religion and government. 
Constantinople was now surrounded in Asia and Europe by 
the arms of a hostile and powerful monarchy ; but Amurath, 
either through prudence or the pressure of circumstances, 
postponed for a time this easy conquest. The Caramanians, 
taking the advantage of his absence, collected a numerous 
army and invaded his dominions ; but Amurath was not long 
in resisting this aggression. The hostile armies met on the 
plains of Dorylseum. The Caramanians fled. They were led 
'by Aladdin, Sultan of Caramania, who had married a daughter 
of Amurath, and who was taken on the field of battle. The 
solicitations of his daughter, whom Amurath loved, saved 
Aladdin from the just reward of his ingratitude; and 
Amurath, with a noble generosity, restored the Sultan to his 
dominions. A number of Christian auxiliaries had been 
sent by Lazarus, prince of Servia, to aid the Caramanians. 
Those taken in battle were punished with severity, while 
the Mahometans were treated with mildness. Lazarus being 
informed of this, broke his allegiance to the Ottoman, and 
appeared at the head of a mighty army of Bulgarians, 
Servians, Bosnians and Albanians. It required both the 
energy of Amurath and the might of the Ottoman empire to 
stem this formidable invasion; but his genius was equal 
to the emergency. The armies encountered each other on 
the plains of Casbva; and after a bloody engagement the 
Christians broke and fled. Thus the league and indepen- 
dence of the Sclavonian tribes was finally crushed. Lazarus 
lay dead upon the fatal field, and Amurath did not long 



BAJAZET. 



19 



survive the victory. His invincible sword could not save 
him from the dagger of despair. While walking over the field 
of battle, a dying Servian started from a heap of slain, and 
pierced him in the belly with a mortal wound. Those 
countries w^hich had yielded to the arms of Amurath, 
abounded ^either in silver nor gold, but they were inhabited 
by a race that have been distinguished in every age, for 
hardiness of body and mind; and by a prudent institu- 
tion, they were converted into the firmest and most faithful 
supporters of the Ottoman arms. 

Those haughty troops, called Janizaries, (or new soldiers,) 
the terror of the nations, and sometimes of the Sultans them- 
selves, owed their institution to Amurath. By the Mahom- 
etan law, he w r as entitled to a fifth part of the spoil and 
captives. Many thousands of Europeans were by these 
means educated in religion and arms, and the new militia 
was named and consecrated with great pomp by a celebrat- 
ed dervish. 

This prince, the grandson of Othman, was modest and 
unostentatious, and a lover of learning and virtue. He ad- 
ministered the laws with impartiality; but the Moslems 
were scandalized at his absence from public worship, and to 
atone for this neglect, he built a spacious mosque at Adri- 
anople. — He died in the year 1389. 



BAJAZET. 

Bajazet, the son of Amurath, ascended the throne, but 
he purchased his elevation with the blood of his brother, 
a practice too faithfully followed by his successors. Few 
more energetic warriors are recorded in history than Bajazet. 
He was named Ilderim, or the lightning, an epithet strongly 
expressive of his character, drawn from the fiery energy of his 
soul and the rapidity of his destructive march. He was 
incessantly engaged in hostilities either in Europe or Asia, 
from Brusa to Adrianople, from the Danube to the Euphrates. 
While this monarch indulged his passions in a boundless 
range of injustice and cruelty, he imposed upon his soldiers 
the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence. Anatolia 



20 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



was reduced to obedience. The emirs of Ghermian, Cara- 
mania, of Aidin and Sarukhan, were stripped of their posses- 
sions; and after the conquest of Iconium, the ancient king- 
dom of the Seljukians again revived in the Ottoman line. 
He returned to Europe, took the cities of Cratova and Widdin, 
and imposed a regular form of servitude on the Servians and 
Bulgarians. He passed the Danube to seek new subjects 
and enemies in the heart of Moldavia, and defeated Stephen 
on the banks of the Siret. Stephen, however, redeemed his 
honour. His mother having branded him as a coward, he 
collected an army, and surprising the Turks while intent in 
plunder, overthrew them with great slaughter. Bajazet and a 
few followers with difficulty escaped. Nothing daunted with 
this reverse, he turned his arms against Greece, and what- 
ever yet adhered to that empire acknowledged a Turkish 
master. The title of emir was no longer suitable to Ottoman 
greatness, and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of 
Sultan from the Kalifs who served in Egypt. His ambi- 
tion being inflamed by the achievement of this title, he 
turned his arms against Hungary. 

Sigismond, King of Hungary, related to the emperors of 
the west, whose cause was that of Europe and the church, 
anticipated his designs, and with an army of 100,000 men, 
had taken Widdin and besieged Nicopolis. The bravest 
knights of France and Germany marched under the banners 
of Sigismond; and they proudly boasted that if the sky should 
fall they would uphold it on their lances. John Count of 
Nevers, son of the Duke of Burgundy, with four princes his 
cousins, and also cousins of the French monarch, and up- 
wards of a thousand knights and squires, marched under 
the command of an admiral and marshal of France. But 
these splendid names were the source of presumption and the 
bane of discipline ; and they had already computed the time 
when they should march to Constantinople and deliver the 
holy sepulchre. Bajazet was rapidly approaching, and the 
youths, heated with wine, resenting as an affront the pru- 
dent advices of Sigismond, clasped their armour, mounted 
their horses, and rode in full speed to the vanguard. They 
fought, however, with invincible courage. They forced a 
rampart of stakes which had been planted against the cavalry, 



BAJAZET. 



21 



and broke, after a bloody conflict, the Janizaries themselves; 
but this handful of intrepid warriors was at last overwhelmed 
by the numerous squadrons which issued from the woods and 
charged them on all sides. The victory was complete; the 
confederate army was totally destroyed, and the greater 
part were slain or overwhelmed in the waves of the Danube. 
Such was the famous battle of Nicopolis, disastrous to the 
Christians but glorious to the Turkish arms. The defeat 
of the confederate army may be attributed to the impru- 
dent impetuosity of the auxiliary troops, and the apathy of 
the Hungarians, who withheld their support at the critical 
period of the battle; but upon this occasion, the military 
talents of Bajazet, and the bravery and discipline of the 
Turks, were conspicuously displayed, in the secrecy and 
rapidity of their march, and in the order and evolutions 
of the battle. Sigismond escaping to Constantinople by 
the Danube and the Black sea, returned after a long 
circuit to his exhausted kingdom. 

Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda, subdue 
Germany and Italy, and feed his horse on the altar of St. 
Peter's at Rome. It was no miraculous interposition of the 
apostle nor a crusade of the Christian powers that checked 
his progress. It was a long and painful fit of the gout. The 
Count of Nevers and four and twenty lords, whose wealth 
was attested, were reserved by Bajazet; but the remainder 
of the French captives who survived the slaughter, were 
led before his throne and successively beheaded in his pre- 
sence. If it be true that the French had massacred their 
Turkish prisoners on the eve of the engagement, it was 
only a just retaliation that fell on themselves. Costly 
presents and two hundred thousand ducats was the ransom 
of the Count of Nevers and the surviving princes and 
barons. The French captives, before their departure, were 
indulged in the freedom and hospitality of the court of 
Brusa. They admired the magnificence of the Ottoman, 
whose hawking equipage was composed of seven thousand 
huntsmen and seven thousand falconers. At the command 
of Bajazet the belly of one of his chamberlains was cut 
open, on a complaint against him for drinking the goat's 
milk of a poor woman. The strangers were astonished by 



22 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



this act of justice; but it was the justice of a prince who 
disdains to weigh the evidence, or to balance the punishment 
with the crime. The justice of kings is understood by 
themselves, and even by their subjects, with an ample indul- 
gence for the gratification of passion and interest. The 
virtue of Bajazet was that of a conqueror, who in the 
measures of peace and war is excited by ambition and 
restrained by prudence; who confounds the greatness with 
the happiness of a nation, and calmly devotes the lives of 
thousands to the fame, or even the ambition, of a single man. 

Constantinople was now the object of Bajazet's ambition ; 
but the mighty Timour, a conqueror more savage than him- 
self, appeared upon the scene, and the fall of the city was 
delayed about fifty years. It was on the banks of the 
Ganges that Timour was informed of the ambitious designs 
of the Sultan Bajazet. His vigour of mind and body had not 
been impaired by sixty-three years ; and after a short resi- 
dence at Samarcand, he proclaimed a new expedition of 
seven years into the western countries of Asia. The 
Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in 
the neighbourhood of Erzerum and the Euphrates. On his 
descent from the mountains of Georgia, Timour gave 
audience to the first ambassadors of Bajazet, and opened 
the hostile correspondence which fermented two years before 
the final explosion. Timour was impatient of an equal, and 
Bajazet was ignorant of a superior; and between two such 
jealous and haughty neighbours, motives of quarrel were not 
wanting. The first epistle of the Mogul emperor provoked 
the Sultan, whose family and nation he affected to despise. 
" Dost thou not know that the greatest part of Asia is sub- 
ject to our arms and laws? that the potentates of the earth 
form a line before our gate? What is the foundation of thy 
insolence and folly? Thou hast fought some battles in the 
woods of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Be wise in 
time ; reflect, repent, and avert the thunder of our vengeance 
which is yet suspended over thy head. Thou art no more 
than a pismire/' &c. In his replies, Bajazet poured forth 
the indignation of a soul stung by such unusual contempt ; 
and retorting the basest reproaches on the thief and rebel 
of the desert, laboured to prove that Timour had never 



BAJAZET. 



23 



triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the vices of his 
foes. " What are the arrows of the Tartar against the scimi- 
tars and battle-axes of my Janizaries? I will guard the 
princes who have implored my protection : seek them in my 
tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzerum are mine, and 
unless the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears 
under the walls of Tauris and Sultania." " If I fly from 
my arms/' said he, " may my wives be thrice divorced from 
my bed; but if thou hast not courage to meet me in the 
field, may est thou again receive thy wives after they have 
thrice endured the embraces of a stranger." Nothing is a 
more unpardonable offence among the Turks than any viola- 
tion by word or deed of the secrets of the harem, and the 
political quarrel" of the two monarchs was imbittered by 
private and personal resentment. In his first expedition 
Timour was satisfied with the destruction of one or two 
frontier cities; and he revenged the indiscretion of the 
Ottoman on a garrison of four thousand Armenians, whom he 
buried alive. As a Mussulman, Timour seemed to respect the 
pious occupation of Bajazet, who was still engaged in the 
blockade o'f Constantinople, and the Mogul conqueror turned 
aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt. 

Bajazet had two years to collect his forces for the terrible 
encounter that awaited him. They consisted of four hun- 
dred thousand horse and foot; but their fidelity was not 
equal. The Janizaries consisted of forty thousand men; a 
national cavalry, the spahis of modern times ; twenty thousand 
cuirassiers of Europe, clad in black and impenetrable 
armour; the troops of Anatolia whose prince had taken 
shelter in the camp of Timour, and a colony of Tartars. 
With this force, Bajazet entered Anatplia, and displayed his 
banners on the ruins of Suvas. 

Timour again visited Georgia, and proclaimed his resolu- 
tion of marching against the Ottoman emperor. Eight 
hundred thousand men were enrolled on his military list. 
In the pillage of Syria the Moguls had acquired immense 
riches, and the delivery of their pay and arrears firmly 
attached them to the imperial standard. 

The fearless confidence of the Sultan urged him to meet 
his antagonist; and he compared the Tartar's swiftness to 



24 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



the crawling of a snail. Timour moved from the Araxes, 
through the countries of Armenia and Anatolia, with cautious 
circumspection, and his march was guided by order and 
discipline. The woods and mountains and rivers were care- 
fully explored by his flying squadrons, who marked his road 
and preceded his standard. He resolved to fight in the 
heart of the Ottoman kingdom, and avoiding the camp of 
Bajazet, dexterously inclined to the left; and traversing the 
Salt desert and the river Halys, invested Angora. The 
Sultan, ignorant of the advance of Timour, returned on the 
wings of indignation to relieve the city. Both were alike 
impatient for the action. The vast army of Timour was 
assembled in order of battle on the plains round Angora 
which was soon to be the scene of a memorable battle, 
destined to immortalize the glory of Timour and the 
shame of Bajazet. " For this signal victory," says Gib- 
bon, " the Mogul emperor was indebted to himself, to the 
genius of the moment and the discipline of thirty years. 
He improved the tactics, without violating the manners, 
of his nation, whose force still consisted in the missile 
weapons, and rapid evolutions of a numerous cavalry. 
From a single troop to a great army the mode of attack was 
the same; a foremost line first advanced to the charge, and 
was supported in a just order by the squadrons of the great 
vanguard. The general's eye watched over the field, and 
at his command the front and rear of the right and left 
w T ings successively moved forward in their several divisions 
and in a direct or oblique line: the enemy was pressed by 
eighteen or twenty attacks ; and each attack afforded a 
chance of victory. If they all proved fruitless or unsuccess- 
ful the emperor gave the signal of advancing to the standard 
and main body, which he led in person. But in the battle 
of Angora, the main body itself was supported on the flanks 
and in the rear by the bravest squadrons of the reserve, 
commanded by the sons and grandsons of Timour/' 

In that day Bajazet displayed the qualities of a soldier and 
a chief; but his genius sunk under a stronger ascendant; 
and from various motives the greater part of his troops failed 
him in the decisive moment. His rigour and avarice had 
provoked a mutiny among the Turks; the forces of Anatolia 



BAJAZET. 



25 



were drawn away to their lawful princes ; and his Tartar 
allies had been tempted to abandon him by the letters 
and emissaries of Tiniour. In the right wing the cuirassiers 
of Europe charged with irresistible fury; but their array 
was broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and 
the Janizaries alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, 
were encompassed by the circle of the Mogul hunters. 
Their valour was at last overcome by heat, thirst, and 
the weight of numbers, and the unfortunate Sultan, who 
was afflicted with the gout in his hands and feet, fled from 
the field, but he was pursued and taken. Anatolia sub- 
mitted to the conqueror, who dispersed on all sides his 
ministers of rapine and destruction. 

Timour at first seemed inclined to treat the royal captive 
with the respect due to fallen greatness ; but his clemency was 
changed into rigour, and Bajazet was subjected to harsh 
and ignominious treatment. He had to suffer many in- 
dignities; but the most severe of all was his confinement in 
an iron cage placed on a waggon which accompanied the 
marches of Timour. His strength of mind and body fainted 
under the trial, and he survived his captivity only nine 
months. He died on the 9th March, 1403. 

Almost all Asia was in the hands of Timour, from the 
Volga to the Persian gulf, from the Granges to Damascus 
and the Archipelago ; but an insuperable though narrow sea 
rolled between Europe and Asia. The two passages of the 
Bosphorus and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, 
were possessed, the one by the Christians and the other by 
the Turks. On this great occasion they forgot their differ- 
ence of religion, and separately withheld the transports 
which Timour demanded. In his camp before Smyrna, the 
Mogul meditated the invasion of China, and entertained the 
romantic idea of subduing Egypt, and marching to the At- 
lantic ocean, crossing the Straits of Gibraltar, and after 
imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of re- 
turning home by the deserts of Bussia and Tartary. His 
arms were turned to the east ; and before he evacuated 
Anatolia, Timour despatched a numerous army beyond the 
Sihoon to clear the road and establish magazines in the de- 
sert; and by the diligence of his lieutenants he soon received 



26 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIREo 



a perfect map of the unknown regions, from the source of the 
Irtish to the wall of China. The emperor returned to his 
capital after a campaign of four years and nine months. 

After some months of festivity passed in his capital, Ti- 
mour unfurled his standard for the invasion of China. 
Neither age nor the severity of winter could restrain his 
impatience; he mounted on horseback, passed the Sihoon 
on the ice, marched three hundred miles from his capital, 
and pitched his last camp in the neighbourhood of Otrar, 
" where," says Gibbon, " he was expected by the angel of 
death." He expired in the seventieth year of his age, 
thirty -five years after he had ascended the throne- of 
Zagatai. 

The Turkish empire received a severe shock in the con- 
quests of Timour. When he evacuated Anatolia, he left the 
cities without a palace, a treasure, or a king. The recent 
conquests of Bajazet were restored to the emirs; and his 
five sons seemed eager to consume the remnant of their 
patrimony in civil discord. 

Mustapha fought by his father's side at the battle of 
Angora; but among the captive children Mousa alone could 
be found, Isa reigned for some time in the neighbour- 
hood of Angora. Soliman, although not numbered in the 
list of emperors, checked the progress of the Moguls, and 
united for a while the thrones of Adrianople and Brusa. 
He abandoned himself to dissipation, and was surprised by 
his brother Mousa; and as he fled from his capital was 
overtaken and slain. Mousa fell a victim to his ministers 
and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet. The 
short reign of this prince was spent in banishing the vices 
of civil discord, and restoring on a firmer basis the fabric of 
the Ottoman monarchy. 



AMURATH II. 

Amurath II. commenced his reign a.d. 1421. Imme- 
diately the peace of the empire was disturbed by the ap- 
pearance of Mustapha who was supposed to have been slain 
at Angora. He gained the support of the Greek emperor, 



AMURATH II. 



27 



and routing the troops of Amurath, ascended the throne 
of Adrianople. Mustapha, abandoning himself to sloth and 
luxury, Amurath again took the field; and Mustapha, 
deserted by his friends, exchanged a throne for a gibbet. 

At last relieved from every legitimate rival, Amurath re- 
solved to direct the whole strength of his empire against 
Constantinople, but he was diverted from his purpose by 
the incursions of the Hungarians. Eesolving to chastise the 
invaders, he directed his arms against Servia, and entering 
Hungary, invested the city of Belgrade. The intrepidity 
and skill of Hunniades compelled him to retire after a long 
siege, and the loss of 150,000 men. " They were defeated/' 
say the Turks, " not only by the plague, but by engines 
cast in the form of tubes, which with the noise of thunder, 
and with flame and smoke, shot out balls of lead of many 
together, each as big as a walnut. " This defeat only turned 
the arms of Amurath. He conquered great part of Greece, 
took Thessalonica and gained possession of all the cities on 
the Black sea. 

Satisfied with his conquests and desirous of repose, Am- 
urath resigned his sceptre into the hands of his son, and re- 
tired to a quiet retreat near Smyrna. The Ottoman do- 
minions were in profound peace; but it was of short dura- 
tion. The Roman pontiff Eugenius IV., was animated by a 
just apprehension of the Turks, who approached and might 
soon invade the borders of Italy. The hostile fleets of the 
maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were associated 
under the standard of St. Peter; but the kingdoms of Hun- 
gary and Poland were most nearly concerned to oppose the 
progress of the Turks. These nations might appear equal 
to the contest; but their spirit was adverse to concorri and 
obedience. Yet on their side the designs of the Boman 
pontiff, and the eloquence of Cardinal Julian, his legate, 
were promoted by the circumstances of the times; by the 
union of the two crowns on the head of Ladislaus; by the 
valour of the hero John Hunniades, whose name was already 
popular among the Christians and formidable to the Turks. 
An endless treasure of pardons and indulgences was scattered 
by the legate. The ardour and distress of the Christians 
beyond the Danube were greatly exaggerated. The Greek 



28 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



emperor engaged to guard the Bosphorus. The Sultan of 
Caramania announced the retirement of Amurath, and a 
powerful diversion in the heart of Anatolia; and if the fleets 
of the West could occupy at the same time the straits of the 
Hellespont, the Ottoman monarchy would be dissevered and 
destroyed. Heaven and earth, it was said, must rejoice in 
the perdition of the miscreants; and the legate, with pru- 
dent ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible, perhaps 
the visible, aid of the Son of God and his divine mother. 

A religious war was the unanimous cry of the Polish and 
Hungarian diets; and Ladislaus passing the Danube, led an 
army of his confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital 
of the Bulgarian kingdom. In this expedition they gained 
two signal victories, which are ascribed to the valour and 
conduct of Hunniades. The mountains of Hsemus ar- 
rested the progress of the hero. The confederate army re- 
traced its steps; and the entrance into Buda, which was 
graced by nine standards and four thousand captives, was at 
once a military and religious triumph. The most solid proof 
of victory was a deputation from the divan to solicit peace, 
to restore Servia, to ransom the prisoners and evacuate the 
Hungarian frontier. A truce of ten years was concluded; 
and the followers of Jesus and Mahomet, who swore on the 
Gospel and Koran, attested the word of God as the guardian 
of truth and the avenger of perfidy. 

But the diet was not dissolved when Julian received in- 
telligence that Anatolia was invaded by the Caramanians, 
and Thrace by the Greek emperor ; that the fleets of Genoa, 
Venice, and Burgundy were masters of the Hellespont; and 
that the allies, informed of the victory, and ignorant of the 
treaty* of Ladislaus, impatiently awaited for the return of 
his victorious' army. " It is to them, to your God and your 
fellow Christians," exclaimed the Cardinal to Ladislaus, " that 
you have pledged your faith ; and that prior obligation anni- 
hilates a rash and sacrilegious oath to the enemies of Christ. 
His vicar on earth is the Roman pontiff, without whose sanc- 
tion you can neither promise nor perform. In his name I 
absolve your perjury and sanctify your arms." This mis- 
chievous casuistry was seconded by the levity of popular 
assemblies, and war was resolved, on the same spot where 



AMURATH II. 



29 



peace had so lately been proclaimed. The army of Ladis- 
laus, under the command of Hunniades, crossed the Danube, 
marched along the shores of the Euxine, burning with wan- 
ton cruelty the churches and villages of the Christian na- 
tives, and their last station was at Varna, near the sea shore, 
on which the defeat and death of Ladislaus have bestowed 
a memorable name. In this emergency Amurath was called 
from his retreat. From Adrianople the Sultan advanced by 
hasty marches at the head of sixty thousand men. The 
Cardinal and Hunniades, alarmed at the numbers and order 
of the Turks, proposed a retreat ; the king alone resolved to 
conquer or die. — Victory seemed to favour the Christians. 
The Turkish wings were broken on the first onset; but the 
advantage was fatal ; and the rash victors were carried away 
from the support of their friends, A copy of the treaty, 
a monument of Christian perfidy, had been displayed in 
the front of the battle ; and it is said that the Sultan in his 
distress, implored the protection of the Grod of truth; and 
called on the prophet Jesus himself, to avenge the impious 
mockery of his name and religion. The Hungarians rushed 
forward in the confidence of victory, till stopped by the im- 
penetrable phalanx of the Janizaries; the king himself was 
slain, whose death was the signal of the overthrow of the 
Christian host. Ten thousand Christians were slain in the 
disastrous battle of Varna. 

The victorious Amurath again returned to his solitude. 
His son was too young to bear the burden of royalty; for 
no sooner had Amurath retired, than the capital became a 
prey to civil faction. Amurath again resumed the sceptre, 
which he retained until his death. Before the battle of 
Varna, George Castriot or Scanderberg, had raised the 
standard of revolt in his native country, Albania. The val- 
our and experience of Amurath were foiled by the Albanian 
chief. He was driven from the walls of Croya, the capital 
of the Castriots, with great loss; and for twenty- three years 
Scanderberg resisted the undivided force of the Ottoman 
empire. " Wherefore/' said Amurath with his dying breath, 
" my son, thou shalt receive from me this sceptre, and these 
royal ensigns; but above all things I leave unto you this 
enemy." 



30 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



The historians of the Ottoman empire describe Amurath 
as having been endowed with every virtue. Just, merciful, 
and religious, he combined the learning of the scholar and 
the wisdom of the statesman to the skill and bravery of the 
soldier. His charity was regular and munificent ; and whilo 
his army was ever victorious, the citizens became rich and 
secure. We cannot, however, accept this portraiture of 
Amurath. In him, we perceive great abilities, united with 
the prevailing vices and cruelties of the age. The applause 
of a servile and superstitious people has often been lavished 
on the worst of tyrants; and the virtues of a Sultan are 
often the vices most useful to himself or agreeable to his 
subjects. A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty 
and law, are awed by the flashes of arbitrary power; and 
the cruelty of a despot assumes the character of justice. It 
must, however, be recorded to the credit of Amurath, that 
in the observance of treaties his w T ord was inviolable and 
sacred. 

The philosophy of the monarch, who at the age of forty 
could discern the vanity of human greatness, would demand 
our admiration; but the motives of Amurath were debased 
by superstition. In his pleasant residence of Magnesia, he 
retired to the society of saints and hermits, and submitted 
to fast and pray with fanatics, who mistook the giddiness of 
the head for the illumination of the spirit. — Age or disease, 
misfortune or caprice, have tempted several princes to de- 
scend from the throne ; but Amurath alone, in the full lib- 
erty of choice, after the trial of empire and solitude, has 
repeated his preference of a private life. 



MAHOMET II. 

Mahomet II. succeeded his father Amurath, and com- 
menced his reign with the murder of his two infant brothers. 
Desirous of terminating a war in which he was engaged with 
the prince of Caramania, he made peace with the emperor of 
the Greeks ; but he had no sooner brought the contest to a 
close than he meditated the siege and capture of the im- 
perial city. 



MAHOMET II. 



31 



The site of Constantinople forms an equilateral triangle, 
having on the south the Sea of Marmora, and on the north- 
east the Gulf of Keras, which forms the port or harbour. 
On the land side it was defended by a double wall, and a 
ditch 100 feet deep and 200 wide; and the harbour was 
secured by a strong chain drawn across from the Fair -gate 
to Galata, and protected by eight large ships. This city 
was considered impregnable, and had it been garrisoned ac- 
cording to its capability it might have defied the assaults of 
its enemies. But such is the effect of civil and religious 
division, that out of 100,000 inhabitants scarcely 5,000 could 
be found willing to man the ramparts. With this small and 
undisciplined army, and a reinforcement of 2,000 Latins, 
commanded by John Justinian, a noble Genoese, Constan- 
tine, the last of the Greek or Eoman emperors, resolved to 
defend the capital of the Ceesars against an army of 300,000 
men. 

The primitive Romans would have drawn their swords in 
the resolution of death or conquest. The primitive Chris- 
tians might have embraced each other and awaited in patience 
and charity the stroke of martyrdom ; but the Greeks of 
Constantinople were animated only by the spirit of religion, 
and that spirit was productive only of anarchy and discord. 
The unpopular measure of a union with the Latins had been 
renounced, but the distress of Constantine imposed a last 
trial of flattery and dissimulation. Ambassadors were sent 
to Rome to solicit temporal aid ; and they were instructed 
to mingle the assurance of spiritual obedience, and to solicit 
the presence of a Roman legate. The Vatican could not 
easily overlook these signs of repentance. A legate was 
more easily granted than an army : and about six months 
before the final reduction of the city, a cardinal appeared, 
with a retinue of priests and soldiers. The emperor saluted 
him as a friend and father ; and the two nations in the 
church of St. Sophia, joined in the communion of sacrifice 
and prayer. The dress and language of the Latin priest 
who officiated at the altar were an object of scandal ; and it 
was observed with horror that he consecrated a cake or wafer 
of unleavened bread, and poured cold water into the cup of 
the sacrament. It is acknowledged by a national historian 



32 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



that none of his countrymen, not even the emperor himself, 
were sincere on this occasional conformity ; and their hasty 
submission was palliated by a promise of future revisal. 
6 i Have patience/' said they, " till God shall have delivered 
the city from the great dragon that seeks to devour us, and 
you shall then perceive whether we are truly reconciled with 
the Azymites." But patience is not the attribute of zeal ; 
and the inhabitants of either sex, and of every degree, rushed 
to the cell of a gloomy and superstitious monk to consult 
the oracle of the church. The holy man was invisible ; en- 
tranced, as it should seem, in deep meditation or divine 
rapture ; but he exposed on the door of his cell a tablet on 
which was written these words, " miserable Komans, why 
will you abandon the truth ; and why, instead of confiding 
in God, will you put your trust in the Italians ? In losing 
your faith you are losing your city. Have mercy on me, O 
Lord ! I am innocent of the crime," &c. According to this 
advice, the religious virgins, pure as angels, rejected the act 
of union, and their example was imitated by the greatest 
part of the clergy and people. From the monasteries the 
devout Greeks dispersed themselves in the taverns ; drank 
confusion to the slaves of the Pope, and emptied their glasses 
in honour of the image of the Holy Virgin. " What occa- 
sion have we," they valiantly exclaimed, " for succour, 
for union, or Latins ? far from us be the worship of the 
Azymites." 

No sooner had the church of St. Sophia been polluted by 
the Latin sacrifice, than it was deserted by the clergy and 
people ; and a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that 
venerable dome which had so often smoked with a cloud 
of incense, blazed with innumerable lights, and resounded 
with the voice of prayer and thanksgiving. The first minis- 
ter of the empire was heard to declare that he would rather 
behold in Constantinople the turban of Mahomet than the 
pope's tiara or a cardinal's hat. Sentiments so unworthy of 
Christians and patriots were familiar and fatal to the Greeks ; 
and their native cowardice was sanctified by resignation to the 
divine decree or the hope of a miraculous deliverance. The 
eastern empire was thus abandoned to its fate, and Christen- 
dom beheld its fall without a murmur. The first step of 



MAHOMET II. 



33 



Mahomet towards the reduction of Constantinople was 
the erection of a formidable castle on the Bosphorus, about 
five miles from the Greek metropolis ; and a thousand men 
were commanded to assemble in the spring for the execution 
of his design. The Greek ambassadors represented to 
Mahomet that this fortification, which would command the 
strait, could only tend to violate the alliance of nations. 
" I form no enterprise," replied the perfidious Sultan, 
" against the city ; but the empire of Constantinople is 
measured by her walls. Keturn in safety; but the next 
who delivers a similar message may expect to be flayed 
alive." After this declaration Constantine resolved to un- 
sheathe his sword and resist the establishment of the Turks 
on the Bosphorus ; but this bold determination, worthy of 
this last of his illustrious race, was disarmed by the advice 
of his civil and ecclesiastical ministers ; and the Greeks shut 
their eyes against the impending danger, till the Sultan had 
decided the assurance of their ruin. 

On the 26th March, a. d. 1452, the appointed spot of 
Asomaton on the Bosphorus, was covered with a swarm of 
active artificers, and the materials by sea and land were 
diligently transported from Europe and Asia. The lime had 
been burnt in Cataphrygia ; the timber was cut in the woods 
of Nicomedia ; and the stones were dug from the Anatolian 
quarries. Each mason was assisted by two workmen, and a 
measure of two cubits was marked for their daily task. The 
fortress was triangular, and each angle was flanked by a 
strong and massy tower. The thickness of the walls was 
twenty-two feet and the towers thirty. Mahomet pressed 
the work with ardour : the meanest labour was ennobled by 
the service of God and the Sultan ; and the diligence of the 
multitude w^as quickened by the eye of a despot, whose smile 
was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the messenger 
of death. 

The harvests of the subjects of Constantine were destroyed 
by the mules and horses of the camp, although a Turkish 
guard had been fixed to protect them ; and the retinues of 
the Ottoman chiefs left their horses to pasture on the ripe 
corn. These insults were resented. Mahomet listened with 
joy to the intelligence : and he resolved to exterminate the 

c 



34 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



guilty : but the guilty had fled ; and forty innocent reapers 
were massacred by the soldiers. The gates of Constanti- 
nople were now shut ; and the emperor expressed in his last 
message the firm resignation of a Christian and a soldier. 
The Sultans answer was hostile and decisive ; his fortifica- 
tions were completed ; and he stationed a vigilant garrison 
to levy a tribute of the ships of every nation that should 
pass within reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel re- 
fused obedience, and was sunk by a single bullet. The 
master and thirty sailors escaped in the boat ; but they were 
dragged in chains to the Porte ; the chief was impaled ; his 
companions were beheaded, and their bodies exposed to the 
wild beasts. 

The siege of Constantinople was deferred to the ensuing 
spring. The Greeks and Turks passed an anxious winter. 
The former were kept awake by their fears, the latter by 
their hope3 ; both by the preparations for defence and attack. 
The prevailing sentiment of Mahomet was strengthened by 
the ardour of youth and temper. Night and day he con- 
templated the approaching event ; and debated with his 
generals and engineers the plans and modes of the attack. 

Among the implements of destruction, Mahomet studied 
with peculiar care the recent and tremendous discovery of 
the Latins ; and his artillery surpassed whatever had yet 
appeared in the world. The precise era of the invention 
and application of gunpowder is involved in doubtful tra- 
ditions. It appears to have been known about the middle of 
the fourteenth century ; and before the end of that century, 
the use of artillery was familiar to the states of western 
Europe. The secret was first disclosed to the Turks by the 
Genoese, and the Sultans had both sense and wealth to re- 
ward their preceptors. A Hungarian who had been starved 
in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and was 
liberally entertained by the Sultan. In reply to the Sultan, 
he said that " were the walls of Constantinople more solid 
than those of Babylon, he would oppose an engine of superior 
power/' A foundry was established at Adrianople; the 
metal was prepared ; and at the end of three months, a piece 
of brass ordnance was produced of stupendous magnitude, 
which discharged stone bullets of six hundred pounds. 



MAHOMET II. 



35 



Nearly two months were employed in transporting this enor- 
mous engine to Constantinople, a distance of one hundred 
and fifty miles. A Turkish cannon more enormous than that 
of Mahomet, still guards the entrance to the Dardanelles. 

It is not surprising that the first rude efforts in the science 
of gunnery should have transgressed the standard of mode- 
ration ; and that the usefulness of cannon and the effect 
produced by the discharge would be supposed to be in pro- 
portion to the size of the gun. While this may be so far 
correct, yet we can discern that in the modern improvements 
of artillery, the number of pieces is preferred to the weight 
of the metal ; and the rapidity of the fire to the consequences 
of a single explosion. 

In the beginning of the spring the vanguard of the Turkish 
army swept the towns and villages as far as the gate of 
Constantinople. Mahomet himself approached and halted 
at the distance of five miles ; and from thence advancing in 
battle array, planted the imperial standard before the gate 
of St. Romanus ; and on the 6th of April 1453, formed the 
memorable siege of Constantinople. Of the triangle which 
composes the figure of Constantinople, two sides along the 
sea were made inaccessible to the enemy. Between the two 
waters, the basis of the triangle, the land side was protected 
by a double wall and ditch. Against this line the Ottomans 
directed their principal attack. In the first days of the 
siege the Greek soldiers sallied into the field ; but from the 
inferiority of their numbers, they were prudently content to 
defend the rampart with their missile weapons. The inces- 
sant volleys of lances and arrows, were accompanied with the 
smoke and fire of their musketry and cannon. The same 
destructive engines were employed by the Moslems with the 
superior energy of zeal, riches, and despotism. The great 
cannon of Mahomet, which has been already noticed, was 
flanked by two of almost equal magnitude. Fourteen 
batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places ; 
and in the power and activity of the Sultan, we may discern 
the infancy of the new science. The great cannon could be 
loaded and fired no more than seven times in one day. The 
siege was pressed with unceasing activity. The Turkish 
approaches were pushed to the edge of the ditch, and they 



36 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and to build a road to 
the assault. Innumerable fascines, hogsheads, and trunks of 
trees, were heaped on each other ; and such was the impetu- 
osity of the throng, that the foremost and the weakest were 
buried under the accumulated mass. Mahomet had recourse 
to mines ; but the rocky soil and the activity of the Chris- 
tian engineers, rendered this mode of attack abortive ; nor 
had the art been yet invented of placing gunpowder in these 
subterraneous passages, and blowing the walls and towers 
into the air. Cannon were mingled with mechanical 
engines for casting stones and darts ; and the bullet and the 
battering-ram were directed against the same wall ; nor had 
the use of gunpowder superseded the use of liquid and un- 
extinguishable fire. Constantine's small band of volunteers 
now seemed inspired with Roman valour ; and the foreign 
auxiliaries supported the honour of western chivalry. What 
had been destroyed in the day was quickly repaired during 
the night : and Mahomet had just cause to anticipate the 
failure of his cherished design. The city was invested 
by sea and land. The Turkish fleet of three hundred 
vessels, at the entrance of the Bosphorus was stretched from 
shore to shore in the form of a crescent. Five Christian 
ships of great size equipped for merchandise and war, and 
laden with troops and provisions for the city, approached 
this formidable force. The superiority in numbers of the 
Moslems was beyond all measure ; but their navy had not 
been created by the genius of the people, but by the will of 
the Sultan. Thousands of spectators on the shores of Europe 
and Asia witnessed the destruction of the Turkish fleet. 
Their boats were open and rudely constructed, and crowded 
with troops ; .and since courage rises in a great measure from 
the consciousness of strength, the Janizaries might well 
tremble on this new element. The lofty ships of the Chris- 
tians sank or scattered the weak obstacles that impeded their 
passage ; and they poured liquid fire on the heads of their 
adversaries. The Turks ited in disorder to the shores of 
Europe and Asia, and the Christian fleet anchored in the 
harbour of the imperial city. In his perplexity the genius 
of Mahomet conceived and executed a plan of a bold and 
marvellous cast, of transporting by land his lighter vessels 



MAHOMET II. 



37 



from the Bosphorus into the higher part of the harbour, into 
which they were launched far above the molestation of the 
deeper vessels of the Greeks. Thus attacked by sea and 
land, after a siege of forty days the fate of Constantinople 
could no longer be averted. The fortifications which had 
stood for ages, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman 
cannon ; many breaches were opened, and four towers had 
been levelled with the ground. Astrology, the favourite 
science of Mahomet, had fixed on the 29 th of May, (a. d. 
1453,) as the fortunate hour. The Moslems were exhorted 
to purify their minds with prayer and their bodies with seven 
ablutions; and a crowd of dervishes visited the tents, to 
instil the desire of martyrdom, and the assurance of spend- 
ing an immortal youth amidst the rivers and gardens of 
paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins. 
Yet Mahomet principally trusted to the efficacy of temporal 
and visible rewards. A double pay was promised to the 
victorious troops. " The city and buildings," said Mahomet, 
" are mine ; but I resign to your valour the captives and 
the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty/' The camp re- 
echoed with their shouts, " There is but one God, and 
Mahomet is the apostle of God ; " and the sea and land were 
illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires. 

Far different was the fate of the Christians. In this 
world all was comfortless and gloomy ; and neither the 
gospel nor the church have proposed any conspicuous re- 
compense specially to the heroes who fall in defence of 
their country. But the example of their prince armed them 
with the courage of despair. 

At daybreak the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land. 
The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the host who 
had joined the camp in hope of plunder. The common im- 
pulse drove them onwards. The strength and ammunition 
of the Christians were exhausted in this laborious defence ; 
the ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain ; and the 
death of this devoted vanguard became more serviceable than 
the life. The defence was desperate ; the voice of the 
emperor was heard encouraging his soldiers. In that fatal 
moment the Janizaries arose fresh, vigorous, and invincible. 
The Sultan himself, with an iron mace, surrounded by ten 



38 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



thousand of his domestic troops, impelled with his voice and 
eye the tide of battle. Crowds of Turks continually pressed 
forward, and the strength of the heroic garrison was at last 
exhausted. Constantine fell covered with heaps of slain. 
John Justinian was pierced with an arrow, the exquisite 
pain of which appalled the courage of the chief ; and he 
whose counsel and courage w T ere the firmest rampart of the 
city, fled from the conflict. The greater part of the Latin 
auxiliaries imitated their chief, while the attack was pressed 
by the Ottomans with redoubled vigour, who were fifty, 
perhaps a hundred, times superior to that of the Christians ; 
and if the besiegers could penetrate a single point, the city 
was irrecoverably lost. The Greeks were now overwhelmed 
with increasing numbers, and they fled towards the city pur- 
sued by the victorious Turks, and Constantinople was now 
irretrievably lost to the Christians. The inhabitants were 
devoted to slavery or ransom, and their treasures be- 
came the spoil of the conquerors. The churches, stripped 
of their images and ornaments, were transformed into 
mosques by worship and purification. Thus terminated the 
existence of the western empire, A. d. 1453, — 1,123 years 
after Constantine had removed the seat of the empire from 
Rome to Byzantium, and had given his name to that cele- 
brated city, which was now destined to be the capital of the 
Ottoman empire. 

In the fall and sack of great cities, the same tale of uni- 
form calamity is produced, and small, indeed, is the differ- 
ence between civilized and savage man. In the fall of 
Constantinople the Turks are accused of a wanton and im- 
moderate effusion of human blood; but according to their 
maxims, (the maxims of antiquity, of which they appear to 
have taken only a moderate advantage,) the lives of the 
vanquished were forfeited, and the reward of the conqueror 
was derived from the ransom or sale of the captives of both 
sexes. 

When Mahomet entered the desolate mansion of the suc- 
cessors of the great Constantine, which in a few hours had 
been stripped of the pomp of royalty, a melancholy reflec- 
tion on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on 
his mind. " The spider/ said he, " has wove his web in the 



MAHOMET II. 



39 



imperial palace; and the owl hath sung her watch song on 
the towers of Afraisiab." 

Although the rapine of an hour was more productive than 
the industry of a thousand years, yet the wealth of Con- 
stantinople did not afford a great booty to the army of the 
victor. The total amount has been estimated at four mil- 
lions of ducats. The city had been left naked and desolate; 
but the walls, the religious edifices and public buildings, 
were renewed, and the population speedily flocked to the 
city, and in a few months, thousands of families from Ana- 
tolia and Romania obeyed the royal mandate, and repaired 
to new habitations in the capital. 

The ambition of Mahomet was far from being satisfied 
with the capture of Constantinople. Like every other con- 
queror it only stimulated his ambition. His arms were 
turned against Servia, which acknowledged his power by an 
annual tribute; and with a large force he laid siege to Bel- 
grade. The skill and bravery of Hunniades again triumphed. 
The Turkish army was discomfited, and Mahomet himself 
was severely wounded. Hunniades, whose genius had so 
often contributed to the overthrow of the Turkish arms, 
shortly survived the victory. 

Disappointed in his hopes of success against Hungary, 
Mahomet turned his attention to the Morea, and the isles of 
the ^Egean sea, which he subdued partly by fraud and partly 
by force. The emperor of Trebisond resigned his capital 
into his hands; and for this liberal gift, which fear alone 
dictated, he was rewarded with an untimely death. 

The dying legacy which his father Amurath bequeathed 
to Mahomet, now appeared in the person of. Scanclerbeg. 
George Castriot, called Scanderbeg by the Turks, was the 
hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus or Albania, 
between the mountains and the Adriatic sea. He was one 
of four sons who were delivered as pledges to the Turks for 
the fidelity of his father, who had been unable to contend 
against the Sultan's power. They were instructed in the 
Mahometan religion, and trained in the arts and arms of 
Turkish policy. The three elder brothers are supposed to 
have been poisoned, but George Castriot, from circum- 
stances which do not appear, received kind and paternal 



40 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



treatment, and in early youth he displayed the strength and 
spirit of the soldier. He served with honour in the wars of 
Europe and Asia; and at an advanced period of life, he 
meditated the independence of Albania, and escaping from 
the Turkish army in the confusion of a battle, arrived 
at the gates of Croya, the capital of the Castriots, which 
were opened to his mandate. He abjured the prophet and 
the Sultan, and proclaimed himself the avenger of his family 
and country. No man was more worthy of his country 
than Scanderbeg. His patriotism was pure and lofty. 
Neither threats nor promises could detach him from his love 
of national independence. His genius was equal to his lofty 
character ; and his undaunted valour and military skill have 
stamped him as one of the greatest military champions of 
his time. Year after year the Turkish armies found a grave 
in the mountains of Albania. Baffled in every attempt to 
overcome the enemy, the disappointed Turk vainly en- 
deavoured to get rid of Scanderbeg by assassination; and 
the failure of all his schemes of fraud and force em- 
bittered the last days, if it did not hasten the death, of 
Amurath. Mahomet, at the head of a numerous army, in- 
vaded Albania, and laid siege to Croya. But his moral 
courage was not equal to the emergency. Fearing that he 
might share his father's disasters, he left Billanus, one of his 
pachas, with 80,000 men to prosecute the siege, and returned 
himself to Constantinople. In a sally of the garrison Bil- 
lanus was shot, and the Turks deserting their camp, were 
routed with great slaughter. An equally fruitless attempt 
was made at the subjugation of Croya in the following 
spring; but Mahomet had scarcely reached Constantinople, 
when he received the welcome intelligence of the death of 
the Albanian, prince. Scanderbeg died of fever at Lyssa, 
a.d. J 466, in the 63d year of his age. Such is the influ- 
ence of patriotism and virtue, that upon the taking of Lyssa 
nine years after, the Janizaries violated the hero's sepulchre, 
and wore his bones enchased in a bracelet, declaring by this 
superstitious amulet, their involuntary reverence for his 
va r our. 

The influence of a single great mind on national for- 
tuaes, is finely illustrated in the case of the Albanians. No 



MAHOMET II. 



41 



sooner had Scanderbeg sunk into the grave, than their skill 
and bravery departed. Mahomet found them an easy prey. 

The Yenetian possessions were now the object of Ma- 
homet's ambition. He took from them the city of Negropont, 
then the strongest walled town in Europe, and wrested the 
Crimea from the Genoese. In an attack upon Rhodes, Ma- 
homet was repulsed. He seized Cephalonia from the Vene- 
tians, and invading Italy took the city of Otranto, which he 
fortified and victualled for eighteen months, with the inten- 
tion of prosecuting his conquests in that country. But 
death put an end to his ambition, and saved Italy from Ma- 
hometan rule. He died a.d. 1481. 

The conquest of two empires, twelve kingdoms, and two 
hundred cities, is ascribed to the invincible sword of Maho- 
met. He was doubtless a soldier, possibly a great general: 
Constantinople has sealed his glory; but if we compare the 
means, the obstacles, and achievements, Mahomet the Second 
must blush to sustain a parallel with Alexander or Timour. 
His arms were checked by Hunniades and Scanderbeg, by 
the Ehodian knights and Persian king. Nevertheless, under 
his rule, the Turkish dominions extended from the Eu- 
phrates to the Adriatic ; and his authority was acknowledged 
by the Tartars on the north of the Euxine, from the Dnies- 
ter to the Cuban. The education and sentiments of Ma- 
homet were those of a devout Mussulman, but age and em- 
pire relaxed his sincerity. His pride and ambition disdained 
to acknowledge a power above his own; and he even pre- 
sumed to brand the prophet of Mecca as a robber and im- 
postor. Mahomet was one of the most learned men of his 
age; but learning was employed without effect upon his 
savage and licentious nature. Implacable in his resentments, 
he knew neither pity nor forgiveness; and in the palace as 
in the field, a torrent of human blood was spilt upon the 
slightest provocation. His passions were at once furious 
and inexorable ; and the noblest of the captive youth were 
often dishonoured by his unnatural lust. Although the 
proudest of men, he could stoop from ambition to the basest 
acts of dissimulation and deceit. Courteous and friendly in 
his speech, the Ottoman breathed the language of peace, 
while war was in his heart ; and with solemn oaths and fair 



42 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



assurances lie pledged to redress the grievances and con- 
sult the true interests of the Greeks, while in the same 
breath he gave orders for the siege of Constantinople. Such 
appear to be the predominant features in the character of 
Mahomet; a character compounded of hypocrisy, cunning, 
cruelty, and deceit. 



BAJAZET II. 

Bajazet II. who succeeded Mahomet, attested the sincerity 
of his religion and his faith in the prophet, by a pilgrimage 
to Mecca; nor would he be dissuaded from this pious mis- 
sion by the intelligence of his advancement to the throne. 
He recommended his son Korkud as his substitute, who 
dutifully resigned the sceptre on his father's return. 

The commencement of the reign of Bajazet was disturbed 
by the pretensions of his brother Djem; and as ambition is 
seldom without an excuse, he founded his claim to dominion 
upon his being born the son of an emperor, whereas Bajazet 
was born before his father Mahomet had ascended the throne. 
Prince Djem was one of the most accomplished men of his 
nation. Skilled in literature and eloquence, he was endowed 
with prudence and magnanimity; but his desire to reign in- 
volved him in a series of misfortunes which terminated only 
with his life. He raised his standard at Brusa, but his army 
was annihilated by the grand vizier Achmet, and he fled to 
Egypt, and was received kindly by the Sultan and supplied 
with money. After a variety of fortune he took refuge in 
Italy; but the Boman pontiff, the infamous Alexander VII. 
corrupted by the gold of Bajazet, administered poison to 
his unsuspecting guest. 

The army of Bajazet under the vizier Achmet was every 
where successful. He overran Moldavia and subjected it to 
tribute; and penetrating into Cilicia, overthrew the Cara- 
manian prince and his Mameluke auxiliaries on the plains of 
Tarsus, and established the dominion of Bajazet over the 
whole sea-coast as far as the Syrian gates. The valour and 
talents of Achmet were fatal to his life. He was the idol of 
the Janizaries whose turbulence and tumults he alone could 



BAJAZET II. 



43 



control. Those very qualities which rendered Achmet 
worthy of the first honours of the state, served only to 
excite the suspicion and jealousy of Bajazet, who resolved 
to destroy him; and he soon secretly accomplished his per- 
fidious design. By this act, Bajazet, instead of adding to 
his security, cast from under him the firmest pillar of his 
throne; and he exposed himself to the fierce resentment of 
an unbridled soldiery, who now felt their influence in the 
government, and who continued for upwards of four cen- 
turies to break the energies and interrupt the happiness and 
prosperity of the empire. 

The increasing power of the Turks was not only beheld 
with apprehension in Europe, but it excited the jealousy of 
the Mameluke sovereigns of Egypt, who embraced every 
opportunity of fomenting and encouraging rebellion in their 
dependencies in Asia Minor. Bajazet was aware of this 
hostile feeling; and he was further incensed by the protec- 
tion which Kaite-bey afforded to his brother Djem. Thus 
was laid the foundation of a quarrel which occasioned much 
bloodshed in this and the following reign, and ended in the 
total overthrow of the Mameluke sovereignty in Egypt. 

Bajazet resolved to invade Syria, but he was anticipated 
by the Mamelukes, who encountered him in the vicinity of 
Mount Taurus. Bajazet sustained a severe defeat, and was 
compelled to retire after the loss of two-thirds of his army 
and all his baggage and cannon. The fleet which accom- 
panied the march of the army was equally unfortunate. 
It encountered a storm, and was totally wrecked at the 
mouth of the river Orontes. 

The Mamelukes were originally Circassian slaves, and like 
the Janizaries of the Turks, formed the choicest troops of 
the Egyptian sovereigns. They were regularly recruited 
from Circassia; and by degrees they grew so formidable to 
their masters that they became the dispensers of the sceptre 
of Egypt. The reigning dynasty was set aside, and they 
raised one of their own nation to the throne. The Mame- 
luke reign in Egypt continued for upwards of a century. 
The reinforcements of the Mamelukes being almost exhaust- 
less, the talents and enterprise of Bajazet enabled him to 
form a scheme by which the supply of Circassian slaves would 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



be entirely cut off, and the subjugation of Egypt thereby 
the more easily accomplished. He made a treaty with the 
Sultan of Egypt, by which he restored the conquests he had 
made two years before in Cilicia, and then led his army into 
Circassia. Seven years were occupied in the reduction of 
this country. A line of posts was established between 
Erzerum and Derbend on the Caspian, by which the emi- 
gration of the inhabitants was completely prevented. 

According to the unanimous suffrage of naturalists and 
travellers, it is in the adjacent climates of Georgia, Circassia, 
and Mingrelia, that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, 
the model of beauty, in the shape of the limbs, the colour of 
the skin, the symmetry of the features, and the expression 
of the countenance. According to the destination of the 
two sexes, the men, it has been remarked, seem formed for 
action, the women for love; and the perpetual supply of 
females from the mountains of the Caucasus, has purified 
the blood and improved the southern nations of Asia. These 
countries have long maintained an exportation of slaves, and 
they furnish a regular supply for the markets of Constanti- 
nople. 

Bajazet adopted no ulterior measures with respect to 
Egypt, His attention was called to the Venetians, with 
whom grounds of quarrel regarding their commercial rights 
were constantly occurring. Their fleets met at Sapienza in 
the Archipelago, when the Venetians were defeated with 
great loss, and the victors became masters of Lepanto and 
Modox. The Turks at the same time invaded Italy, and 
ravaged Friuli; but they received a severe check from 
Gonsalvo, the famous Cid, who drove their fleet into the 
Hellespont and destroyed a number of their ships. 

Bajazet, though naturally averse to war, was at the same 
time a successful soldier ; and he seems only to have taken 
up arms when demanded by the exigencies of the state. 
He zealously promoted literature and the arts; and now 
being at peace with all his neighbours, he devoted himself 
to the study of the religious and philosophical literature 
of Islamism. His peaceful studies were interrupted by the 
rebellion of Schetian Kuli, the founder of a sect of Mahometan 
heretics. This impostor took the common method of acquir- 



SELIM, 



45 



ing a character for sanctity by the austerities of his life, and 
by his retirement from the world in a secret cave. No re- 
ligion, either divine or human, has ever yet been so deeply 
rooted in the human mind as to prevent its adherents from 
being misled by artful impostors. This Schetian Kuli had 
collected such a number of followers, that not contented 
with attempting the conversion of his countrymen, he took 
up arms to revolutionise the state; but being defeated in 
several engagements by the troops of Bajazet, he fled to 
Persia, and converted to his opinions the sovereign of that 
country and most of his subjects. 

The ties of parental affection appear to have become 
languid or altogether dead in the Turkish princes. Bajazet 
was indulging his love of retirement and contemplating 
measures to raise his son Achmet to the throne, when his 
youngest son Selim, supported by the Janizaries, snatched 
the sceptre from his grasp, and followed up his rebellion by 
the murder of his father, a. d. 1511, and the thirtieth of 
his reign. 



SELIM. 

t The character and disposition of Selim, as exhibited in 
his unnatural rebellion, and the murder of his father, require 
little illustration. But as if not content with the enormities 
he had already committed, he began by providing for the 
stability of his throne, by devoting to death all his brothers 
and nephews. 

The Sunnites, who were believed by the Turks to be the 
only orthodox believers, and whose mosques had been de- 
stroyed by Ismael, the Shah of Persia, who had adopted the 
heresies of Schetian, established a religious animosity 
mingled with personal jealousy and national agrandisement, 
between two of the most powerful sovereigns of Islamism, 
which continued to be prosecuted for two centuries with all 
the bitterness which sectarian rancour could inspire. The 
fiery Janizaries were fit and willing instruments in the hands 
of Selim for the gratification of his relentless and cruel dis- 
position. 



46 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



Selim prepared to encounter his antagonist, and assem- 
bled a great army on the plains of Erzerum. His troops 
were subjected to great suffering in crossing the mountainous 
deserts of Ararat, and he had well nigh fallen a victim to 
their resentment. The appearance of the enemy has often 
revived the drooping courage of soldiers, and renewed their 
attachment to their commander. The appearance of the 
Persian host saved perhaps the life of Selim ; but it was not 
a spirit of heroism that restrained the murmurs and roused 
the courage of the Janizaries. The Persian forces appeared 
glittering with gold and precious stones, and attended by 
numerous beasts of burden, and cupidity and the love of 
plunder produced that effect on the troops of Selim, which 
true bravery and the honour of the soldier could not accom- 
plish. Thus the splendid trappings of the Persian army 
not only brought about its destruction by the useless impedi- 
ments which they must necessarily have imposed upon its 
evolutions, but by the effects which the exhibition of all this 
riches produced. 

The armies met on the plains of Calderon, A. d. 1514. 
The Turks obtained the victory, but so dearly was it bought, 
that they called it " the day of judgment." An immense 
booty fell into the hands of the Ottomans; but their retreat 
was disastrous, and Selim with difficulty rescued his army 
from the attacks of the Kurdish mountaineers. The energy 
of Selim was in no way abated by this disaster, and he arose 
from the conflict with renewed strength. He again prepared 
for the invasion of Persia, by subduing the vast peninsula 
between the Euphrates and Tigris ; and by these important 
conquests he opened an easy access into the dominions of 
Ismael. The , Sultan of Egypt could not be induced to 
detach his alliance with Persia, and Selim being afraid to 
leave so powerful a sovereign behind him, advanced into 
Syria, and encamped on the plains of Aleppo. Selim was 
saved from impending ruin by the treachery of the governor 
of Aleppo who deserted from the enemy, and was thus en- 
abled to rally his forces and bring his artillery into action, 
which made great havoc among the Mameluke squadrons. 
These troops were compelled to retire with the loss of their 
Sultan, and the Ottoman army marched to Cairo, when, 



SELIM. 



47 



after another obstinate but decisive encounter, the power of 
the Mamelukes was annihilated, and the new Sultan was 
hanged on the gates of Cairo by the orders of Selim. 

Egypt being thus in the power of the Turks, Selim estab- 
lished the government in twenty-four beys, whose authority 
was subjected to a council of regency, supported by a stand- 
ing army of 20,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry. Syria and 
Palestine were converted into Ottoman pachaliks ; the scherif 
of Mecca proffered to him the keys of the holy city ; and the 
Arabs of the desert submitted to his sovereign authority. 
On the return of the inexorable Selim, an ambassador from 
Persia met him at Aleppo, and endeavoured by presents and 
flattery to avert his hostility to the Persian King; but 
Selim swore that he would subvert the Persian empire, and 
extinguish a race odious to God and man. Persia, however, 
was saved by the death of Selim, who died after forty days 
of severe suffering. Selim obtained for the Ottoman Sultans 
the title of Caliph, which confers the highest influence and 
supremacy. It is scarcely possible to imagine human nature 
reduced to such a state of degradation as to have tamely 
submitted to the cruelties of Selim. The laws of war and 
the duties of a commander require from him prompt and 
energetic measures for restraining the passions and preserv- 
ing the subordination of the soldiers, which, in civil life, 
would be justly entitled to the epithet of barbarous. The 
conqueror or usurper may find in his own mind an excuse 
for the greatest of political crimes, and may impose upon 
the minds and persons of his subjects the yoke of slavery, 
and subject them to punishment and death, on the plea of 
expediency ; but the sovereign or the soldier who orders 
the victims of his displeasure to instantaneous execution, 
merely through caprice or the love of slaughter, deserves the 
unmitigated execration of mankind. 

Such was the conduct of Selim. When he first prepared 
for war, his vizier inquired in what quarter he should erect 
his tents, for which he was instantly strangled. His suc- 
cessor repeated the same question, and met with the same 
fate ; but the third pitched the tents towards the four points 
of the compass, and when the Sultan demanded where his 
camp was fixed, " Every where/' said the vizier, " thy 



48 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



soldiers will follow thee everywhere thou shalt lead." " Be- 
hold/' said the tyrant, " how the death of two has procured 
me a capital vizier." Upon another occasion, upon his march 
to Cairo, one of his officers presumed to ask when they 
should enter a certain village, " When God pleases," said the 
Sultan, " but for thee it is my pleasure that thou stay here," 
and immediately ordered his head to be struck off. The 
character of a despot and a conqueror united in" the same 
person, is generally attended with the most unhappy results : 
and successful conquest coupled with unrestrained power, 
has invariably produced the worst effects upon the human 
mind. Ancient as well as modern history illustrate this 
truth. Hence we need not wonder that we find in Selim, 
united with the most wanton and capricious cruelty, all the 
qualities which constitute a great warrior, and some of those 
accomplishments that adorn the human mind, and add an 
imperishable lustre to a throne. He is said to have been 
distinguished for his attainments in the literature and philo- 
sophy of his age ; and the following inscription in Arabic 
verse, written by himself, and placed upon the pavilion of 
the Nilometer, which he constructed and embellished, testifies 
to his genius and to the correctness of his views regarding 
the great disposer of human affairs. " All the riches and 
possessions of men belong to God, who alone disposes of 
them according to his will. He overturns the throne of the 
conqueror, and scatters the treasures of the lords of the 
Nile. If man could claim for his own the smallest particle 
of matter, the sovereignty of the world would be divided 
between God and his creature." 

Selim was the most successful general of his time, and 
during his short reign added more territory to the Ottoman 
empire than any of his predecessors. He died, A. D. 1519, 
after a short reign of 8 years. 



SOLIMAN. 

Solinian succeeded to the Ottoman throne, and like his 
predecessors, easily found an excuse for the invasion of the 
neighbouring states. The submission of Persia and the con- 



SOLIMAN. 



49 



quest of Egypt enabled him to turn his whole forces against 
the Christians, with whom the followers of Mahomet were 
in continual antagonism. An insult offered to his ambassa- 
dor at the court of Hungary, afforded him a pretext for war. 
Belgrade, the bulwark of Hungary, before which the Turkish 
arms had been so frequently discomfited, fell through 
treachery after a short siege of four weeks. The capture of 
this important stronghold opened up a passage into Hungary. 
But the time of service of a great part of his troops had ex- 
pired, and as they were unwilling to remain longer in ser- 
vice, the conqueror of Belgrade was compelled to return to 
Constantinople. Had Soliman been enabled to have taken 
advantage of the divisions which then agitated Christen- 
dom, he might have planted the crescent on the walls of 
Yienna. 

The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who occupied the 
island of Rhodes, the avowed enemies of the Ottomans, 
and acknowledged to be the chief defence of Italy against 
the fleets and armies of the Turks, attracted the ambition of 
Soliman. Thither he directed his power, and with an army 
of 200,000 men, and a fleet of 400 sail, appeared against 
this small state, defended by a garrison of 5,000 soldiers and 
600 knights under the command of the Grand Master, whose 
valour and wisdom rendered him worthy of the station at 
this dangerous juncture. He despatched messengers to all 
the Christian courts, imploring their aid against the common 
enemy. But although every prince of the age acknowledged 
Rhodes to be the bulwark of Christendom in the east ; 
though Adrian, with a zeal which became the head and 
father of the church, exhorted the contending powers to 
forget their private quarrels, and by uniting their arms to 
prevent the infidels from destroying a society which did 
honour to the Christian name ; yet so implacable was the 
animosity of Charles V. and Francis I., that, regardless of the 
danger to which they exposed all Europe, they suffered 
Soliman to carry on his operations against Rhodes without 
disturbance. The Grand Master, after incredible efforts of 
courage, patience, and military conduct during a siege of 
six months, was obliged at last to yield to numbers ; and 
having obtained from the Sultan, who admired and respected 

D 



50 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



his virtue, an honourable capitulation, he surrendered the 
town, which was reduced to a heap of rubbish and destitute 
of every resource. Charles and Francis endeavoured to 
throw the blame on each other ; but Europe, with great 
justice, imputed it equally to both. The emperor Charles, 
by way of reparation, granted the Knights of St. John the 
small island of Malta, in which thay fixed their residence, re- 
taining, though with less power and splendour, their ancient 
spirit and implacable enmity to the infidels. 

Soliman having restored tranquillity to Egypt, which had 
been distracted by the rebellion of his pachas, again turned 
his steps towards Hungary, which, during a long life, con- 
tinued to be the principal scene of his triumphs and his 
shame. His army consisted of 200,000 men ; and Lewis 
II., King of that country and Bohemia, a weak and inex- 
perienced prince, advanced to meet Soliman with a force 
which did not amount to 30,000. With a still more unpar- 
donable imprudence, he gave the command of these troops to 
a Franciscan monk. This awkward general, in the dress of 
his order, marched at the head of the army ; and hurried on 
by his own presumption and the impetuosity of his nobles, he 
fought the fatal battle of Mohatz, in which the King, the 
flower of the Hungarian nobility, and upwards of 20,000 
men fell the victims of his folly and misconduct. Soliman, 
after this victory, seized and kept possession of several towns 
of the greatest strength in the south of Hungary, and over- 
running the rest of the country, carried two hundred 
thousand persons into captivity. 

An insurrection which took place in Anatolia threatened 
to separate this province from the Turkish empire. The 
suppression of this rebellion occupied Soliman three years, 
during which Buda was retaken by the Hungarians. At 
this period Hungary was distracted by a disputed succession 
between Zapoli Waywode of Transylvania, and Ferdinand 
the Archduke of Austria. The claims of Ferdinand, 
although well founded, had they not been powerfully sup- 
ported would have met with little regard. The feudal in- 
stitutions in Hungary and Bohemia existed in such vigour 
that the crowns were still elective. But his own merit, the 
necessity of choosing a prince able to afford his subjects some 



SOLIMAN. 



51 



additional protection against the Turkish arms which they 
so greatly dreaded, together with other circumstances, over- 
came the prejudices which the Hungarians had conceived 
against the archduke as a foreigner, at length secured Fer- 
dinand the throne of Hungary. The states of Bohemia 
imitated the example of the neighbouring kingdom. Za- 
poli, unable to cope with his rival, sought the protection of 
the Turkish Sultan, and offered to hold the kingdom as a 
fief of the Ottoman crown. Soliman gladly accepted his 
submission, and proceeded to Hungary under pretence of 
recovering the kingdom in behalf of his vassal. Buda sur- 
rendered at his approach. The principal fortresses of the 
Danube also yielded without opposition, and he sat down 
before Vienna with an army whose tents covered a space of 
six miles. Thirty days spent in almost continual assaults, 
and the loss of 80,000 of his bravest troops, compelled him 
to retire from before the Austrian capital. The valour of 
the Germans, the prudent conduct of Ferdinand, and the 
treachery of the Yizier, all contributed to this result. 

Exasperated by the dishonour done to his arms, Soliman 
assembled an army of 300,000 men, and marched without 
opposition to the confines of Germany, where he was 
stopped by the small fortress of Guntz. The emperor 
Charles having received intelligence of Soliman's having 
entered Hungary, made preparations for the defence of the 
empire. The Protestants, as a testimony of their gra- 
titude to the emperor, exerted themselves with extraor- 
dinary zeal, and brought into the field forces which ex- 
ceeded the number required of them. The Catholics 
imitated their example. They were joined also by a body 
of Spanish and Italian veterans ; by some heavy armed cav- 
alry from the Low Countries, and by troops which Ferdinand 
had raised in Bohemia, Austria, and his other territories. 
The army thus brought together, amounted in all to ninety 
thousand disciplined foot, and thirty thousand horse, besides 
a prodigious swarm of irregulars. Of this vast army, 
worthy of the first prince in Christendom, the emperor took 
the command in person; and mankind waited in suspense 
the issue of a decisive battle between the two greatest mon- 
archs in the world. But each of them dreading the other's 



52 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



good fortune, they both conducted their operations with 
such caution, that the campaign ended without any memor- 
able event. Soli man, finding it impossible to gain ground 
upon an enemy always on his guard, marched back to Con- 
stantinople. It is remarkable that in such a martial age, 
this was the first time Charles, who had already carried on 
such extensive wars, appeared at the head of his troops. 
To have opposed such a general as Soliman was no small 
honour; to have obliged him to retire, merited considerable 
praise. But the world expected, and had reason to antici- 
pate, from both more decisive conduct. 

The habits of ages appear to have rendered war the 
natural state of the Turkish nation. But, indeed, the 
history of all the great eastern empires, whose policy 
the Turks carried down to a late period, presents an 
uninterrupted succession of conquest or disaster. Soli- 
man, to repair the disgrace which fell upon his arms, 
turned his attention towards Persia, and advancing to Tau- 
rus, awaited the approach of the enemy. His troops were 
attacked by the Persians, when intent on plunder. Many 
of them were slain and taken captive. This campaign, al- 
though destructive to the greater part of the Ottoman army, 
w r as attended with important conquests. The opulent city 
of Bagdad and its dependencies fell before the arms of Soli- 
man; these he converted into a Turkish province, which 
still continues to be the eastern bulwark of the empire. 

While Soliman pursued his conquests in the east, he was 
not unmindful of the extension of his power in other direc- 
tions. The states of Barbary, including the kingdoms of 
Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis, were inhabited by a mixed 
race of Arabs and Moors, all zealous professors of the Ma- 
hometan religion, and inflamed against Christianity with a 
bigoted hatred proportional to their ignorance and barbar- 
ous manners. About the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
tury a sudden revolution happened, which rendered these 
states formidable to the Europeans. The inhabitants of 
these kingdoms were daring, inconsistent, and treacherous, 
and they have justly been called the piratical states, which 
occupation many of the people pursued. This revolution 
was brought about by persons whose rank in life entitled 



SOLIMAN. 



53 



them to act no such illustrious part. Hourc and Hayradin, 
natives of the isle of Lesbos, joined a crew of pirates, and 
by their valour soon rendered themselves so formidable, 
that their names became terrible from the Dardanelles to 
Gibraltar. Their ambition increased with their fame; and 
while acting as corsairs, they adopted the ideas and ac- 
quired the talents of conquerors. Hourc, called Barbarossa, 
from the red colour of his beard, was admiral, and Hayradin 
second in command, but with almost equal authority. 

The prizes which they took on the coast of Spain and 
Italy were often carried into the ports of Barbary, and from 
their own liberality, and the prodigality of their crews, they 
were welcome guests at every place they touched. The near 
proximity of the ports of Barbary to the richest states of 
Christendom made the Turks desirous of an establishment in 
this country. An opportunity soon presented itself, which 
they did not overlook. The King of Algiers was so ill ad- 
vised as to apply to Barbarossa for his assistance, to enable 
him to wrest the fort of Oran from the Spanish government, 
which had been built not far from his capital. Barbarossa 
gladly accepted the invitation; and leaving the fleet in 
charge of Hayradin, marched at the head of 5,000 men to 
Algiers, where he was received as their deliverer. The 
Moors did not suspect him of any bad intentions; nor were 
they capable of opposing him. Barbarossa secretly mur- 
dered the monarch which he had come to assist, and pro- 
claimed himself King of Algiers. Not satisfied with the 
throne of Algiers, he attacked the neighbouring states, 
while he continued to infest the coast of Spain and Italy 
with fleets that resembled the armaments of a great monarch , 
rather than the light squadrons of a corsair. At last the 
governor of Oran received the assistance of a sufficient num- 
ber of troops to attack Barbarossa, and after several defeats, 
he was overtaken and slain. Hayradin, known also by the 
name of Barbarossa, assumed the sceptre of Algiers; and as 
a precautionary measure against the expected attacks of the 
Christians, he put his dominions under the protection of the 
Sultan. Soliman offered him the command of the Turkish 
fleet ; and Barbarossa repairing to Constantinople, and 
mingling the arts of a courtier with the boldness of a cor- 



54 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



sair, gained the entire confidence of the Sultan and his 
Yizier. Barbarossa communicated a scheme which he had 
formed of making himself master of Tunis, and he obtained 
whatever he demanded for carrying it into execution. Bar- 
barossa getting possession of Alraschid, one of the sons of 
the late monarch, easily persuaded him to visit Constanti- 
nople, by promising him the assistance of Soliman, whom he 
represented as the most just and generous of monarchs. 
Soliman with much facility approved of the perfidious de- 
sign of Barbarossa, and as Alraschid was going to embark, 
he was shut up in the seraglio by the orders of the Sultan, 
and was never heard of more. Barbarossa sailed with a 
fleet of 250 vessels towards Africa, and ravaging the coast 
of Italy, and spreading terror through every part of that 
country, he appeared before Tunis; and landing his men, 
gave out that he came to assert the right of Alraschid, 
whom he pretended to have left sick on board his galley. 
This base proceeding was successful; and the people of 
Tunis were compelled to acknowledge Soliman as their mas- 
ter. The power of Barbarossa was now very great. The 
town and port of Groletta were put in a posture of defence, 
and he carried on his depredations against the Christians 
with more destructive violence than ever. 

Charles was now resolved to revenge the outrages com- 
mitted against his subjects in Spain and Italy, and he pre- 
pared to undertake the enterprise. A Flemish fleet carried 
from the ports of the Low Countries a body of German in- 
fantry: the gallies of Sicily and Naples took on board the 
veteran bands of Italians and Spaniards. The emperor 
himself carrying with him the flower of the Spanish nobility, 
embarked at Barcelona. The Pope furnished all the assist- 
ance in his power to this pious enterprise; and the order of 
Malta fitted out a small squadron for the occasion. On the 
16th July, 1535, the fleet, consisting of 500 vessels, having 
on board 30,000 regular troops, set sail from Cagliari, in 
Sardinia, and after a prosperous navigation landed within 
sight of Tunis. Barbarossa behaved on this occasion as an 
accomplished politician and a warrior; but his tumultuary 
force was not able to resist the formidable power of Charles. 
Goletta fell, and the emperor became master of Barbarossa's 



SOLIMAN. 



55 



fleet, consisting of 87 galiies and galliots, together with his 
arsenal and 300 brass cannon — a prodigious number in that 
age, and a remarkable proof of the strength of that fort and 
the Corsair's power. The army of Barbarossa having been 
defeated, Tunis surrendered to the arms of Charles; Barba- 
rossa himself escaped. 

This narrrative belongs more to European than to Turkish 
history; but it nevertheless exhibits the policy of the Sul- 
tans, and the unscrupulous measures which they were ever 
ready to adopt to extend their conquests. The Christian 
powers at this period began to assert that supremacy which 
they have ever since maintained ; and during the reign of 
the Emperor Charles V. when Europe was agitated by the 
reformation of Luther, the Turkish empire reached its 
highest point of prosperity. But Charles still dreaded 
the power of the Turkish arms ; and what rendered 
them still more formidable, was the league which Soli- 
man had entered into with Francis King of the French, in 
which Soliman engaged to invade the kingdom of Naples, 
and to attack the king of Hungary, while Francis under- 
took to enter the Milanese. Soliman performed what was 
incumbent on him. Barbarossa appeared with a great 
fleet on the coast of Naples, and filled that kingdom with 
consternation, and plundered the adjacent, country. The 
arrival of the Pope's galiies and a squadron of the Venetian 
fleet, made it prudent for him to retire. In Hungary the 
Turks were more formidable. Mahomet their general de- 
feated the Germans in a great battle at Essek on the Drave. 
Happily for Christendom, it was not in Francis' powder to 
assemble an army strong enough to enter the Milanese ; and 
thus Italy w T as saved from the calamities of a new war, and 
the desolating rage of the Turkish arms. 

The infant son of John Zapoli had been recognised, on the 
death of his father, by the greatest part of the Hungarian 
nobility ; and was crowned at Buda, under the name of 
Stephen ; and when Ferdinand disputed his claim, the queen 
appealed to Soliman for his assistance in behalf of his vassal. 
Ferdinand also offered to accept the crown of Hungary 
under the same ignominious condition of paying tribute to 
the Ottoman Porte, by which John held it. But the Sul- 



56 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



tan seeing the advantages resulting from espousing the 
interests of the young king, promised him his protection; 
and commanding one army to advance towards Hungary, 
he himself followed with another. The queen, a woman 
of masculine courage, ambition and magnanimity, had 
committed the care of her son to Martinuzzi, a man who 
by the variety and extent of his talents was fitted to 
act a superior part in bustling and active times. The 
king and his mother were shut up in Buda, of which the 
Germans had formed the siege; but Martinuzzi having 
drawn thither the strength of the Hungarian nobility, de- 
fended the town till the Turkish forces came up to its relief. 
They instantly attacked the Germans, and defeated them 
with great slaughter. 

Soliman soon after joined his victorious troops; and being 
unable to resist the alluring opportunity of seizing the 
kingdom while possessed by a woman and an infant, he 
added Hungary to the Ottoman dominions. What he plan- 
ned ungenerously, he executed by fraud. He requested the 
queen to send her son to his camp, and invited the chief of 
the nobility to an entertainment there. He seized the gates 
of Buda; sent the queen with her son to Transylvania, and 
appointed a bashaw to preside in Buda, with a large body of 
soldiers. Nor Jiad the tears of the unhappy queen, or the 
entreaties of Martinuzzi, any influence to change the inflexible 
determination of the Sultan. 

Hungary continued to be torn by conflicting pretensions, 
till it fell almost totally under the sway of Soliman. 
Charles, who had been carrying on negotiations with the 
Porte, at last concluded a truce of five years, by which each 
should retain possession of what he held in Hungary, and 
Ferdinand, as a sacrifice to the pride of the Sultan, submit- 
ted to pay a tribute of fifty thousand crowns. In the 
meantime, the fleet under Barbarossa ravaged the coast of 
Italy, and shortly after, the lilies of France and the crescent 
of Mahomet appeared in conjunction against the fortress of 
Nice, on which the cross of Savoy was displayed. 

Ferdinand's attention was turned so entirely towards the 
affairs;] of Germany, that he made no attempt to recover 
Hungary, although a favourable opportunity for the purpose 



SOLIMAN. 



57 



presented itself, as Soli man was engaged in a war with 
Persia, and involved in domestic calamities which engrossed 
and disturbed his mind. Soliman, though distinguished by 
many accomplishments from the other Ottoman princes, had 
all the passions peculiar to that violent and haughty race. 
He was jealous of his authority, sudden as well as furious in 
his anger, and susceptible of all that rage and love which 
reign in the east, and often produce the most wild and 
tragical effects. 

A circumstance occurred about this period in the domestic 
history of Soliman, which conveys a striking idea not only 
of the character of Soliman himself, but serves to illustrate 
the characters of the Turkish Sultans generally. Such 
tragical scenes, productive of so deep distress, seldom occur 
but in the history of the great monarchies of the East, where 
the warmth of the climate seems to give every emotion of the 
heart its greatest force, and the absolute power of sovereigns 
accustoms and enables them to gratify all their passions 
without control. 

The favourite mistress of Soliman was a Circassian slave, 
of exquisite beauty, who bore him a son called Mus- 
tapha, who, on account of his birthright, was destined to 
be the heir of the Ottoman throne. 

Roxalana, a Russian captive, soon supplanted the Cir- 
cassian, and gained the Sultan's heart. She kept possession 
of his love without any rival for many years, during which 
she brought him several sons and one daughter. All the 
happiness which she derived from the unbounded sway that 
she had acquired over a monarch whom one half of the 
w r orld revered or dreaded, was embittered by perpetual re- 
flections on Mustapha's accession to the throne, and the 
certain death of her sons, who, she foresaw, would be imme- 
diately sacrificed, according to the barbarous jealousy of 
Turkish policy, to the safety of the new emperor. Roxalana 
dwelt continually on this melancholy idea, and looked upon 
Mustapha as the enemy of her children. She gradually 
conceived a hatred for him, which prompted her to wish his 
destruction, in order to secure for one of her sons the throne 
that was destined for Mustapha. Nor did she want ambi- 
tion for such an enterprize ; nor arts to carry it into execu- 



58 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



tion. Having prevailed upon the Sultan to give her only 
daughter in marriage to the Grand Yizier Rustan, she dis- 
closed her secret to that crafty minister, who readily co- 
operated with her, it being his interest to aggrandize that 
branch of the royal line to which he was so nearly allied. 

By every scheme which ingenuity could suggest, and the 
most artful policy could execute, Roxalana endeavoured to 
strengthen, if possible, her power over the Sultan. Soliman 
being absent with the army, she seemed to be overwhelmed 
with sorrow, and to sink into the deepest melancholy, as if 
she had been disgusted with life and all its enjoyments. 
Soliman discovered all the solicitude of a lover to remove it ; 
and by writing under his hand, declared her a free woman. 
The Sultan, on his return to Constantinople, sent an eunuch, 
according to the custom of the seraglio, to bring her to par- 
take of his bed. Roxalana refused to accompany the eunuch, 
declaring that what was an honour while a slave, became a 
crime in a free woman, and that she would not involve 
either herself or the Sultan in the guilt that must be con- 
tracted by an open violation of the law of the prophet. 
Soliman, whose passion became inflamed by this affected 
delicacy, had recourse to the Mufti for his direction. He 
replied agreeably to the Koran, that Roxalana's scruples 
were well founded; but added artfully, in words which 
Rustan had taught him to use, that the difficulty might be 
removed by the Sultan espousing her as his lawful wife. 
The amorous monarch closed eagerly with the proposal, 
although it had been a maxim of policy, since the time of 
Bajazet the First, that the sultans should admit none to their 
beds but slaves, whose dishonour could not bring any stain 
upon their house. This step convinced Roxalana of her 
unbounded influence over the Sultan's heart, and embol- 
dened her to prosecute the scheme which she had formed in 
order to destroy Mustapha. This young prince, according 
to the practice of the sultans in that age, had been intrusted 
with the government of several provinces, and was invested 
w r ith the administration in Diarbekir, the ancient Mesopo- 
tamia, which Soliman had wrested from the Persian empire. 
In all his different commands Mustapha had conducted him- 
self with great prudence and moderation as well as justice; 



SOLIMAN. 



59 



and he displayed such valour and generosity, as rendered 
him the favourite of the people and the idol of the soldiery. 
There was no folly nor vice which could be brought against 
Mustapha. Boxalana's malevolence was more refined; she 
made his virtues engines for his destruction. She praised 
to Soliman the splendid qualities of his son; she celebrated 
his courage, his liberality, his popular arts, with malicious 
and exaggerated praise. These encomiums were often re- 
peated, and the Sultan began to hear them with uneasiness ; 
suspicion of his son began to mingle with his former esteem ; 
by degrees he came to view him with jealous fear; she art- 
fully introduced some discourse touching the rebellion of 
his father S el im against Bajazet his grandfather; she took 
notice of the bravery of the troops under Mustapha's com- 
mand, and of the nearness of Diarbekir to the territories of 
the Persian Sophi, Soliman's mortal enemy. By these arts, 
whatever remained of paternal tenderness was gradually ex- 
tinguished, and such passions were kindled in the breast of 
the Sultan, as gave all Roxalana's malignant suggestions the 
colour not only of probability but truth. His suspicions 
and fear of Mustapha settled into deep-rooted hatred. He 
appointed spies to observe and report all his words and ac- 
tions; he watched and stood on his guard against him as 
his most dangerous enemy. The Sultan's heart being thus 
alienated from Mustapha, Koxalana prevailed upon Soliman 
to allow her own sons to appear at court; and although this 
was contrary to the practice of that age, the monarch 
granted her request. To the intrigues of Roxalana, Eustan 
added an artifice equally subtle, which completed the Sul- 
tan's delusion and fear. He wrote to the Bashaws of the 
provinces adjacent to Diarbekir, with all the appearance of 
zeal for their interest, instructing them to send intelligence 
of all Mustapha's proceedings, and that nothing could be 
more acceptable to the Sultan, than to receive favourable* 
accounts of his son, whom he destined to sustain the glory 
of the Ottoman name. The Bashaws filled their letters 
with studied but fatal panegyrics of Mustapha, representing 
him as a prince worthy to succeed such a father, and as one 
who might emulate, perhaps equal, his fame. These letters 
were industriously shown to Soliman; and such was the 



60 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



effect they produced on a mind already shaken by jealousy 
and fear, that he fancied he already saw the prince and his 
officers assaulting the throne with rebellious arms; and he 
determined, while it was yet in his power, to anticipate the 
blow, and to secure his own safety by his sons death. 

For this purpose, though under the pretence of renewing 
the war against Persia, he ordered Eustan to march to Diar- 
bekir with a numerous army, and to rid him of a son 
whose life was inconsistent with his own safety. But the 
crafty minister did not wish himself to put this cruel com* 
niand into execution. As soon as he arrived in Syria, he 
wrote to Soliman that the danger was imminent, and called 
for his immediate presence; that the camp was full of Mus- 
tapha's emissaries; that the soldiers were corrupted; that 
Mustapha was about to be married to a daughter of the 
Persian monarch; that the Sultan alone, under the circum- 
stances, had power to carry his resolution into execution. 

The last and most envenomed of all the calumnies of 
Boxalana and Eustan had the desired effect. Soliman had 
conceived an inveterate abhorrence of the Persians ; and the 
charge of courting the friendship of the Sophi, threw him 
into the wildest transports of rage. He hastened to Syria 
with all the impatience of fear and revenge. As soon as he 
had joined his army, and had concerted measures with Eus- 
tan, he sent a messenger to his son, requiring him imme- 
diately to repair to his presence. Mustapha was no stran- 
ger to the machinations of his step-mother, or to Bustan's 
malice, or to his father's violent temper; but conscious of 
his own innocence, he hastened to Aleppo. The moment 
he arrived, he was introduced into the Sultan's tent ; he ob- 
served nothing that could give him alarm; no crowd of at- 
tendants, no body of armed guards were there; the same 
silence as usual reigned in the Sultans apartments. In a 
few minutes, however, several mutes appeared, at the sight 
of whom, Mustapha cried with a loud voice, " Lo, my 
death ! " and attempted to fly. The mutes seized him : he 
struggled and resisted, and eagerly demanded to see the 
Sultan. Despair, and hope of protection from the soldiers 
if he could escape, animated him with extraordinary cour- 
age, and for some time he baffled the efforts of his exe- 



SOLIMAN. 



61 



cutioners. Soliman was within hearing of his son's cries; 
and impatient of this delay of his revenge, and struck with 
terror at the thought of Mustapha's escape, he drew aside 
the curtain which divided the tent, and thrusting in his 
head, darted a fierce look towards the mutes, and with wild 
and threatening gestures, seemed to condemn their sloth 
and timidity. At the sight of his father's unrelenting coun- 
tenance, Mustapha's strength forsook him: the mutes fas- 
tened the bow-string about his neck, and in a moment pu- 
an end to his life. The dead body was exposed before the 
Sultan's tent. The soldiers gathering round it, contemt 
plated the mournful object with sorrow and indignation, 
and were ready, if a leader had not been awanting, to have 
broken out into the wildest excess of rage. They retired to * 
their tents, and bewailed in secret the cruel fate of their 
favourite; nor did any of them taste bread or even water 
during the remainder of the day. Next morning the same 
silence reigned in the camp; and Soliman fearing that some 
dreadful storm would follow the calm, dismissed Rustan, 
agreeable to a private arrangement, and raised Achmet, a 
brave officer, and beloved by the soldiers, to the dignity of 
Grand Vizier. The resentment of the soldiers gradually 
subsided, and the name of Mustapha began to be forgotten. 
Achmet was strangled by the Sultan's command, and Rus- 
tan reinstated in the office of Vizier. The designs of Rox- 
alana and Rustan were not yet completed. The race of 
Mustapha must be exterminated; and for that purpose they 
employed the same arts to inspire Soliman with fear, lest 
the only son of Mustapha should grow up to avenge his 
father's death. Soliman. issued the order, and it was exe- 
cuted with barbarous zeal, by an eunuch who was chosen 
for that purpose. No rival was left to dispute the Ottoman 
throne with the sons of Roxalana. 

But the domestic peace of Soliman and Roxalana was 
not secured by the death of Mustapha. Their sons, Bajazet 
and Selim, now commenced a career of mutual hatred and 
rivalry, which led to an event in which the cruelty of Soli- 
man and the perfect wickedness of Roxalana were equally 
conspicuous. Bajazet, who had been appointed governor of 
Iconium, in order to forward his sinister views, permitted 



62 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



an impostor, who had raised a rumour that Mustapha was 
still alive, to levy troops in his government. The whole 
empire was menaced with a revolution: Soliman seized the 
impostor, who in despair avowed the part taken by Bajazet. 
The tears of Koxalana preserved him from the vengeance of 
his father ; but Soliman's passions neither wore away nor 
were forgotten. Bajazet thus being an object of suspicion. 
Roxalana secretly inclined to her younger son Selim; and 
Bajazet, in order to secure his own safety and maintain his 
right to the throne, levied a body of troops, and prepared 
to attack his brother Selim in his government of Amasia. 
Proscribed at length by Soliman, the unfortunate prince 
threw himself under the protection of the Persian Sophi. 
No event of his reign excited greater rage in the mind of 
Soliman. He prepared for war; but the arts of Roxalana 
saved him from this alternative. She bribed the Persian 
minister, and the life of the prince was made the price of a 
strict union between the two states. Magnificent presents, 
and six hundred thousand crowns of gold, were presented to 
the Shah, as the stipulated sum for the part he had pro- 
mised to act. Hassan, who had been brought up with Ba- 
jazet from his youth, was the envoy appointed by Soliman 
to accomplish his revolting design. On his arrival in Per- 
sia, Hassan found Bajazet so pale and wan, and his hair and 
beard so overgrown, that he could not recognise him; and 
Hassan was compelled to strangle with his own hand, the 
companion of his youth, to appease the fears of Soliman. 
The four sons of Bajazet were involved in the father's des- 
tiny; and the sepulchre of the Ottoman race was again 
opened, to receive the murdered victims of an entire descent. 
Selim was declared prince of Amasia, a title thenceforth at- 
tached to the' presumptive heir of the Ottoman throne. 

These scenes of domestic discord were followed by events 
of a pacific character, unknown to any other part of the 
long and brilliant reign of Soliman, during which he dis- 
played those great qualities of wisdom and bounty which 
have been the theme of admiration of the Ottoman people. 
But while engaged with his enlightened legislative mea- 
sures, he did not neglect to attend to his finances, and to 
complete the numbers and add to the efficiency of his army. 



SOLIMAN. 



63 



An incident more personal than national, which excited the 
flames of a new war, rendered these precautionary measures 
not needless. 

In the year 1558, Charles V., who had filled the world 
with his renown, resigned his dominions, and retired to 
pass the remainder of his life in preparing for eternity. 
Ferdinand, his brother, succeeded Charles in the empire. 
The states of Barbary now constituted a portion of the 
Ottoman empire, whence Soliman drew many of his most 
experienced officers. Barbarossa was no more; but he was 
succeeded by Dragut, a chief no less skilful and daring. His 
enterprises again excited a Christian league to extinguish his 
power, and a Spanish force was landed on the coast of 
Tripoli. A panic seized the Christian fleet, and they were 
entirely overthrown; and the army on shore, unable to em- 
bark, surrendered themselves captives. Soliman, on the 
arrival of the victorious fleet, proceeded to the mosque to 
return thanks for his triumph, when he exhibited all that 
dignity and composure which formed a remarkable feature 
in his character; and he witnessed from the garden of the 
seraglio the triumphant entry into port of his fleet with the 
captives. The knights of Malta had been foremost in this 
Christian league; and Soliman, enraged at those heroic 
warriors, and the constant vigilance wdrich their enterprise 
and daring required of him, resolved to crush them alto- 
gether. 

A naval armament of 200 sail, carrying an army of 
30,000 men, was destined for this enterprise. The defence, 
conducted by La Yalette, covered the Knights with honour, 
notwithstanding the obstinacy and the determined fury 
which characterised Turkish warfare. The viceroy of Sicily 
arriving with 10,000 men, obliged the Turks to retire with 
precipitation, with the loss of 24,000 men, after a siege of 
five months. Dragut who was much regretted by the 
Sultan, was amongst the number of the slain. 

Hungary was at this time rent in pieces by three conflict- 
ing parties — the officers of Soliman, and of the emperor 
Maximilian the second, and the pretensions of Stephen, son 
of Isabella, Waiwode of Transylvania. Isabella had ceded 
Transylvania to the Turks; and in lieu of that province and 



64 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



her pretensions to the crown of Hungary, received a yearly 
pension of 100,000 ducats, and retired into Poland, her 
native country. Soliman perceiving that he could not suc- 
ceed in the designs he had cherished unless he overcame the 
emperor, resolved, notwithstanding his advanced age, to pro- 
ceed against the enemy. Meantime the Pasha of Buda 
aided the Waiwode's cause, by carrying on the siege of Buda, 
but was compelled to retire. Soliman was in the seventy- 
sixth year of his age ; but years had not abated either his 
courage or ambition. He collected an army of 200,000 
men, on the plains of Adrianople ; and never had an army 
of so splendid a character been displayed to the world. He 
poured this vast force upon the devastated provinces of 
Hungary. The Sultan was encircled by the most imposing 
pomp. But amid all this splendour, and placed on the very 
pinnacle of human grandeur and power, the pallidness of his 
countenance foretold that, while he advanced to victory, with 
his triumph he would find a tomb. 

The inconsiderable fortress of Zigith, situated on the con- 
fines of Hungary, was built in a morass, and joined to the 
land by a causeway, which was defended by solid bastions. 
The indomitable spirit of the governor, with a small force of 
only GOO men, resisted the attacks and bribes of Soliman, 
who, with an army of 150,000 men and 100 pieces of ord- 
inance, advanced against the fortress. The 29th of August, 
the anniversary of the battle of Mohatz, was chosen for the 
assault. The approach was defended inch by inch with 
incredible bravery. The Janizaries were thrown down 
headlong from a steep breach, crushed under pieces of rock, 
and scorched by torrents of boiling oil which the besieged 
were continually throwing down upon them. The Sultan, 
enraged at the delay caused by such a small fortress, 
threatened to cast the heads of his generals into the ditch 
of Zigith if they did not take the place. But all their 
efforts were unavailing ; and the Sultan returning to his 
tent, filled with grief and despair, was seized by a fit of 
apoplexy, which in a few minutes terminated his life. 

The Vizier Mehemet concealed the death of Soliman, and 
continued to press the siege. Meanwhile, he had sent for 
Selim to take possession of the throne. A magazine having 



SOLIMAN. 



66 



taken fire, the heroic defenders of Zigith were compelled to 
leave the ruinous heap which they had so gloriously de- 
fended. The governor, Count de Serino, preferring death 
to the ignominy of defeat, dressed himself in his richest 
clothes, and exhorting his followers not to receive quarter, 
threw open the gates, and at the head of his heroic band 
rushed upon the enemy. They caused great slaughter ; but 
the Janizaries closing around them; they were overwhelmed 
by numbers, and two only, who recovered of their wounds, 
ended their lives in slavery. 

It was the peculiar glory of the period in which Soliman 
occupied the Ottoman throne, to produce the most illustri- 
ous monarchs who have at any one time appeared in Europe. 
Charles V., Francis I., Henry VIII., and Soliman, were 
each of them possessed of talents which might have rendered 
any age in which they happened to flourish conspicuous. 
But such a constellation of great princes shed uncommon 
lustre on the sixteenth century. In every contest, great 
power as well as great abilities were set in opposition; the 
efforts of valour and conduct on one side, counterbalanced 
by an equal exertion of the same qualities on the other, oc- 
casioned such a variety of events as renders the history of 
that period interesting. But the most remarkable was the 
commencement of that reformation in religion which rescued 
one part of Europe from the Papal yoke, mitigated its 
rigours in the other, and produced a revolution in the senti- 
ments of mankind, the greatest and most beneficial that has 
happened since the publication of Christianity. 

Soliman is known chiefly as a conqueror, but is celebrated in 
the Turkish annals as a great lawgiver, who established order 
and police in the empire, and governed during his long reign 
with no less authority than wisdom. During this reign, the 
Ottoman government seems to have attained the highest per- 
fection of which its constitution is capable; and the Turkish 
troops possessed every advantage which arises from fortitude 
and bravery, and superiority in military discipline. The 
authors of the sixteenth century almost unanimously, and 
with mingled feelings of fear and regret, represent the Turks 
as far superior to the Christians both in the knowledge and 
in the practice of the arts of war. 

E 



66 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 



Soliman first brought the finances and military establish- 
ment of the empire into a regular form; and although the 
revenue was far from being considerable, he supplied the 
defect by an attentive and severe economy. He divided 
the military force into two divisions; the soldiery of the 
Porte — or standing army, and the soldiers appointed to 
guard the frontiers, numbering about 150,000 men. When 
these were added to the soldiers of the Porte, they formed 
a military power greatly superior to any other state in 
Christendom. The frontier army consisted of soldiers to 
whom were given grants of land, in return for which mili- 
tary service was to be performed. In his book of regula- 
tions he fixed with great accuracy the extent of these lands 
in each province of his empire, and the number of soldiers 
each grant should bring into the field, and the pay which 
they should receive while engaged in service, and regulated 
everything relating to their discipline, their arms, and the 
nature of their service. He caused also a compilation to be 
made of all the maxims and regulations of his predecessors, 
on subjects of political economy; he strictly defined the 
duties, privileges, and powers of governors, commanders, 
and public functionaries ; and he assigned to every public 
functionary his rank at court, in the city, and in the army. 
The work which he had thus finished, seemed to himself a 
compendium of human wisdom ; he contemplated it with the 
fondness of a parent; and conceiving it susceptible of no 
farther improvement, he endeavoured to secure its perpetual 
duration. 

The Ottoman court under Soliman exhibited a degree of 
splendour far removed from the bigoted habits of its for- 
mer masters; and he held a distinguished rank among the 
contemporary princes of Europe. He has been termed the 
glory of the Ottoman empire; but with Soliman, its glory 
departed; for while the current of civilization and improve- 
ment had set in among the nations of Western Europe, it 
was repelled by the barrier of Ottoman pride. 'After the 
reign of Soliman, the Turks no longer continued to be the 
terror of Christendom. The decay of the empire can be 
traced to internal as well as external causes. The arro- 
gance and bigotry of the Turks led them to believe that 



SELIM II. 



67 



the institutions of S oilman were perfect, and that therefore 
they were susceptible of no improvement. Previous to his 
reign the princes of the blood were early trained to war and 
business, and generally before they ascended the throne, 
had governed provinces and commanded armies, and were 
in a great measure prepared for a more responsible power. 
But the princes were now confined to the retirement and 
obscurity of the harem, and when called to the throne were 
entirely ignorant of everything that pertains to war and 
government, and were naturally looked upon with contempt 
by the soldiers, that first and most necessary arm in a des- 
potic government. 

During a period of nearly three centuries, the armies of 
Turkey had been commanded by sultans that emulated each 
other in military genius, so that conquest became a neces- 
sary element in sustaining the traditional glory of the em- 
pire, and maintaining Turkish ascendency in Europe. After 
the death of Soliman, the military talents of the sultans and 
the bravery and discipline of the soldiers no longer sus- 
tained their wonted reputation ; while the rapid progress of 
civilization and improvement in the nations of Christendom, 
which began about this period, put an end for ever to Ma- 
hometan aggression. 



SELIM II., 

The only remaining son of Soliman, ascended the throne 
a.d. 1566, in the 42d year of his age. The Ottoman em- 
pire had cause to regret the change. Confusion and profli- 
gacy succeeded to strict rules of civil order : the laws ceased 
to be respected, and military discipline began to lose its 
vigour. It was well known that Selim was addicted to wine 
and convivial pleasures, and he took no pains to conceal his 
excesses from the people. Drunkenness, a crime almost un- 
known amongst the Turkish sovereigns, and extremely rare 
amongst the people, began to be looked upon with indif- 
ference ; and wlien Selim arrived to take possession of the 
throne, he drank wine openly, which was hailed with joy 
by the populace. So strictly had the prohibition of the 



68 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 



prophet against the use of wine hitherto been observed, that 
the act for which Selim was applauded, cost Soliman the 
son of Bajazet his life. Meantime the Grand Vizier dread- 
ing the mutinous character of the Janizaries, kept the death 
of Soliman concealed, and the usual state was observed in 
• the imperial household. The dead body of the emperor 
was conveyed on a horse litter covered with a cloth of gold ; 
and it was supposed that he was merely suffering from a fit 
of the gout to which he was subject. Mehemet led the 
Turkish army, as if by the Sultan's order, towards Con- 
stantinople, and it was in the plains of Belgrade that Selim 
met the army and the remains of his father. The news of 
the death of the emperor was received by the soldiers, especi- 
ally by the Janizaries, with profound grief ; their next feeling 
was that of revolt. The body of Soliman was deposited in 
the magnificent mosque which, after its founder, bears the 
name of Solimania. To make a pilgrimage to this tomb is 
still considered meritorious in a devout Mussulman, not 
only in admiration of the splendid qualities of Soliman, but 
especially as he is esteemed to have been a peculiar favourite 
of heaven. 

The imprudence of Selim soon became as manifest as his 
vices. No sooner had he returned from the funeral of his 
father, than he resolved to show himself to his subjects with 
the splendour of his predecessor. On this occasion the 
person of Selim was guarded by the chief officers of the 
seraglio to the exclusion of the Janizaries, who alone 
claimed that peculiar honour. Already dissatisfied at hav- 
ing lost their usual donation, on the accession of a new em- 
peror, this mutinous body resolved to regain their lost 
honour and their accustomed rights. No sooner had the 
royal procession left the palace, than they barricaded it 
against his return; nor could the sovereign re-enter the 
imperial residence but by a compliance with their de- 
mands. The martial and energetic princes whose actions 
we have recorded, possessed that ascendency over the sol- 
diers which usually accompanies military genius; but the 
excesses and indolence of Selim rendered him contemptible 
in the estimation of the army. Pie was not, however, ig- 
norant that the constant occupation of his vast forces was 



SELIM II. 



69 



necessary, if he wished to indulge in luxury and repose; 
and that an empire gained by the sword can suffer no con- 
traction. The Turkish government being purely military, 
it was constructed only for conquest; and therefore it pos- 
sessed no renovating plan of conservation or of improve- 
ment in its framework. The provinces conquered by the 
Turks were maintained by force, and were severally par- 
celled out to the government of military vassals; and the 
accession of new subjects continually created causes for new 
war. In these circumstances, Selim was of all men the 
most unfit for the government of his extensive empire, or 
to maintain the discipline of the impatient and turbulent 
Janizaries, which even the vigorous hand of Soliman or of 
Selim I. could scarcely restrain. But Mehemet, who had 
been the Grand Yizier of Soliman, and who exercised su- 
preme authority under him throughout his reign, was 
capable, in a great measure, of supplying the defects of 
Selim. The Janizaries having returned to their duty and 
allegiance, the Yizier employed a portion of them to repress 
a rebellion among the powerful Arab tribes of Beni-Omer, 
inhabiting the deserts towards Bagdad. The rebellion was 
crushed; but these demonstrations of hostilities on the part 
of the Persian sectaries, made the Turkish government 
anxious to conclude a peace with the Emperor Maximilian, 
that it might direct thither its undivided forces. After a 
train of studied delays, a treaty was signed upon the con- 
dition of each party retaining what it had ; and that a yearly 
tribute should be paid by Hungary. The Waiwode of 
Transylvania had concluded a mutual treaty with Austria, 
that that province should fall to Austria at his decease; 
which was guaranteed in the treaty between the Sultan and 
the Emperor. This beautiful and fertile province has since 
continued to belong to Austria. 

An intense hatred had long been nourished between the 
Turks and Persians ; and the impulse of the Turkish nation, 
rather than, the indolent Selim, recommenced a war which 
the genius of his father could not bring to a successful issue. 
The sandy deserts of Persia being the chief defence of that 
country against the arms of Turkey, the Vizier resolved to 
open a passage for his master's fleets to the centre of the 



70 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



Persian empire, by the execution of a design worthy of 
the enlightened genius of more modern times. 

The two great rivers of the north of Europe, the Don 
and the Wolga, after having watered the provinces of Po- 
land and of Russia, appear on the point of junction; but the 
Don suddenly turns to the right, and the Wolga to the left. 
The former, after having bathed the walls of Azof, loses itself 
in the marshes of the Palus Mseotis; and the latter pours 
its mighty mass of waters, by sixty-five mouths, into the 
Caspian sea, after receiving the tribute of forty- eight rivers, 
and running a course of thirteen hundred leagues, A space 
of thirty miles separates these two streams, at their nearest 
point of junction, and by cutting a canal through this space, 
a navigable route would be formed with the Bosphorus and 
the Caspian sea. Selim undertook the execution of this 
splendid design. Being master of Azof, he sent up the Don 
a fleet conveying 5,000 Janizaries and 3,000 workmen; and 
an army of 80,000 men was destined to follow their footsteps. 
The Janizaries, impatient for war, aided the labours of the 
workmen, and a body of troops was detached to take pos- 
session of the city of Astracan, on the northern shore of 
the Caspian, and at the principal mouth of the Wolga where 
the canal was to terminate. But Astracan was defended 
by a race capable of keeping their possessions; a people j 
whose name had not yet reached the knowledge of the 
invaders, but from this moment never to be separated 
in history. Such was the first collision betwixt the Turks 
and Russians. 

A thousand years have elapsed since the Russians inter- 
mingled themselves with a part of those Sclaves or Scla- 
vonians, who from the east migrated into the north, and 
after having settled on the shores of the Caspian Sea, spread 
themselves over different parts of Europe. The real origin 
of the Sclavonians is unknown. Russian historians pretend 
to trace the origin of the Sclavonians from Saklab, and of 
the Russians from Rouss, both of them sons of Japhet, the 
youngest of the children of Noah. But it appears more 
consistent with historical accuracy, to say that they both 
sprung from that innumerable family of Huns, whose armies, 
like destructive torrents, inundated the most beautiful 



SELIM II. 



71 



countries of Asia and of Europe, and accelerated the down- 
fall of the Koman empire. 

At the commencement of the fifth century, the Sclavonians 
erected the city of Novogorod, and upon the banks of the 
Dnieper the foundation of KicefF was laid. The former was 
for long the metropolis of the Sclavonians, and the latter 
that of the Eussians. These two cities continued to emulate 
each other in commerce and in war. Kii, the founder of 
KicefF, carried his victorious arms as far as the Sea of 
Marmora. The commerce of Novogorod rendered her every 
day more flourishing, and she imposed her yoke on various 
nations contiguous to her territory; and she proudly in- 
scribed on her banners, " Who shall dare to attack God and 
Novogorod the great?" The government was democratical, 
and every one had a right to aspire to authority, and to 
employ himself in the affairs of the state, as they all pos- 
sessed alike the power of increasing their private fortune by 
commerce. But in the bosom of prosperity and equality, 
they knew not how to be either happy or free. They had 
riches, but they had not the art of enjoying them; ambition, 
but not prudence; and the pride of commanding without 
the expectation of being obeyed. Their quarrels usually 
terminated in blood; and to put a stop to the anarchy which 
prevailed, they applied for foreign aid. Rourik, distin- 
guished among the pirates of the Baltic, obeyed the sum- 
mons, and about the middle of the ninth century arrived 
at the head of an unknown horde, to establish peace and 
servitude among the Novogorodians. 

Bourik died after a short reign of seven years. He had 
but one son, who was named Igor, and he was left in care of 
Oleg, his kinsman. Oleg employed himself in extending 
the boundaries of the state. He made himself master of 
Smolensko by force, and Kiceff by treachery, and by the 
massacre of the princes who reigned there. He established 
his residence at KicefF; and a. d. 904 armed a fleet of two 
thousand boats, with which he proceeded to lay Constanti- 
nople under tribute. In this audacious and barbarous ex- 
pedition, the Russians abandoned themselves to every excess, 
and committed all the crimes which could possibly disgrace 
the most ferocious of conquerors. In this expedition they 



72 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



overcame obstacles which, considering the rudeness of their 
government and their ignorance of arts, appear to be diffi- 
cult, if not insurmountable; but their success will excite 
less astonishment, if we recollect that other pirates and rob- 
bers, who like them had but a few crazy skiffs, several times 
vanquished England and ravaged the coasts of France ; and 
that at a later period, the freebooters with their little canoes, 
for a long time caused the conquerors of the new world to 
tremble. 

Igor gave proof that he was a worthy pupil of Oleg. He 
fitted out a fleet of the incredible number of ten thousand 
vessels, and four hundred thousand warriors, with the in- 
tention of laying waste the empire of the East ; and he 
deluged with blood, Pontus, Bithynia and Paphlagonia. 
There is no species of cruelty which the Bussians did not 
exercise against the wretched inhabitants of these countries. 
The Greeks, however, were at last successful. The Bussian 
fleet was destroyed; and this barbarian led back to his 
capital only a third of the numerous army with which he 
set out. A second expedition proved less unfortunate ; and 
the Greek emperor chose rather to pay a tribute to Igor, 
than to attempt to vanquish him. 

Alga, the wife of Igor, was at the death of this prince, 
left in charge of the government of his states. She showed 
herself to be no less barbarous than he had been, and she 
was more perfidious and more superstitious. In her old 
age she embraced Christianity ; but her conversion was 
neither imitated by her subjects, nor even by her son, to 
whom she yielded up the throne. 

The example of embracing Christianity, exhibited by Walo- 
dimar L, the fourth in descent from Bourik, had a greater 
effect. After having passed the most considerable portion 
of his life in the fury of carnage, and in the delusion of 
idolatry, he took a fancy, in order to gratify alike his ambition 
and his lust, to espouse the sister of the emperor of Constan- 
tinople, who durst not refuse her to him, and to become a 
Christian, according to the Greek rites. He caused him- 
self to be baptized, and commanded his subjects to do the 
same. Influenced by novelty, or perhaps by fear, every one 
hastened to obey the summons. 



SELIM II. 



73 



There is every reason to reject, as altogether fabulous, 
the history of the origin and settlement, and of the feuds 
and conquests of the Russians and Sclavonians, as neither 
the Russians nor the Sclavonians even possessed an alphabet, 
and therefore could not set down in writing those events of 
which they were the authors. They appear in the Byzantine 
annals in the year 851, before which their history is not 
entitled to be regarded as authentic. Until the year 988, 
the Russians and Sclavonians had several deities, of which 
the principal was Peroun, whom they believed hurled the 
thunder, and regulated at his pleasure all the celestial 
phenomona, and to whom they frequently sacrificed human 
victims. Koupalo was the god of plenty and of harvests; 
and his worshippers did not bedew his altars with blood ; 
nor those of Lada, whom they regarded as the goddess of 
love. Other divinities protected flocks, or presided over war, 
navigation, sleep and riches. This mythology resembles 
that of Greece, or may be supposed to be an imitation of it ; 
but it does not appear how these ignorant barbarians 
acquired or when they adopted this mythology; and it can 
scarcely be supposed that they had the knowledge or the 
means to enable them to adopt it from the Grecian annals. 

The human mind in all ages and nations, in its progress 
from the savage state to civilization, presents a remarkable 
resemblance; and mankind in widely different eras, and in 
the opposite hemispheres of the globe, have conceived 
similar superstitions and discovered nearly approximating 
methods, according to the circumstances in which they have 
been placed, to enable them to procure the necessaries and 
even the comforts of life. It is not unlikely, therefore, that 
a religion akin to the mere outlines of the Grecian mythology 
may have arisen in the deserts of Russia or of Tartary. 

But whencesoever the Sclavonians derived their mytho- 
logy? whether it was the invention of their prophets or 
early priesthood, or adopted from some superior race, it 
may fairly be regarded as a measure by which to gauge 
their intellectual and moral capabilities. If it was the re- 
flection of their own intelligence, it evinces that the race 
possessed originally high natural endowments ; or if adopted 
from some foreign source, it is still an index, that at a very 

* 



74 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



early period they possessed susceptibilities of a high order, 
capable of the comparative civilization which has since 
marked their history. It appears, indeed, to be a law ap- 
plicable to all the different races and tribes of mankind, that 
the higher and larger the form of religious belief, the more 
elevated is the intelligence, and the more rapidly such races 
advance in the sciences and the arts of life. Accordingly, 
we find that those races who have embraced Fetich worship, 
are unmarked by any distinctive signs of progress, and have 
little more history than the wild animals by which they are 
surrounded. The idea, indeed, of there existing a superintend- 
ing power, such as that entertained by the Sclavonic race, for 
every class of natural and moral phenomena, bespeaks at 
once a lofty intelligence, and hence indicates a range of 
thought in other directions, which required only superior 
opportunities to develop and mature. 

Walodimar was not long in giving a proof of the impotency 
of the idols which he had so long adored. He ordered 
that of Peroun to be fastened to the tail of a horse, who 
drew it to the banks of the Dnieper, when a dozen of sol- 
diers beat it with a stick and threw it into the river. The 
god made no resistance, and Walodimar applauded the act. 

It is needless to review the actions of a crowd of princes 
who ruled during the first four centuries of which Russian 
history makes mention, whose only object seems to have 
been to tyrannize over their subjects, and to disturb their 
neighbours. Their history presents only a constant succes- 
sion of iniquitous aggressions, of atrocious combats, and of 
absurd superstitions. We could only exhibit the most per- 
fidious treachery concealed under a veil of sincerity ; brother 
murdered by the hand of brother ; ignorance pouring forth 
accusations -of sorcery, and causing its victims to perish by 
the fire and by the sword ; old age and infancy butchered 
without mercy, and the conquered loaded with chains. Tiie 
reign of one of those barbarians exhibits a type of all the 
rest; for each resembles another in ambition and ferocity. 

But a great revolution in the year 1220 interrupted for 
a time their tyranny, without altering their character. This 
was produced by the irruptions of the Tartars or Mongols, 
under Zenghis-Khan, who of all conquerors has farthest ex- 



SELIM n. 



75 



tended the power of his arms. But it was reserved for 
Batou-Sagin, grandson of Zenghis, entirely to subjugate 
Russia. In those bloody invasions the Tartars renewed all 
those excesses, of which the Russians so many times had 
set the example. They reduced to ashes a great number of 
cities and villages, and massacred not only the inhabi- 
tants who made the slightest resistance, but frequently 
those who submitted and implored their pity. The Russians 
continued during three centuries to be vassals of the 
Tartars. 

About the middle of the fifteenth century, Ivan Wassilo- 
witch emancipated Russia from the Tartar yoke. Ivan II., 
the contemporary of Selim the Sultan of Turkey, had dis- 
tinguished his reign by the conquest of the kingdoms of 
Casan and Astracan ; and it was this redoubtable foe whom 
Selim unwittingly proceeded to provoke. The canal for 
uniting the Don and the Wolga was making rapid progress, 
when 5,000 Russians unexpectedly attacked those engaged 
in the works. The Janizaries and workmen, taken by sur- 
prise, were slaughtered without resistance. This unexpected 
enemy, coupled with other causes, put an end to the splendid 
enterprise of the Ottoman Sultan. 

The Mussulman faith requires that a certain prayer should 
be offered in the third portion of the night ; but in those 
countries where a short interval interposes between the set- 
ting and rising of the sun, induced the Turks to believe that 
the regions of the north were absolutely interdicted to true 
- Mussulmans. The jealousy also of a chief who, fearing that 
the completion of the canal would render the service and 
alliance of the Tartar Khans less necessary, artfully spread a 
rumour exaggerating the suffering of the troops in these for- 
lorn climates ; and to complete the alarm, the Tartars 
lamented the loss of their companions in the same faith, 
called to labour in a climate where the shortness of the 
night, and the quick appearance of the orb of light above 
the horizon after midnight, left the Mussulmans, during the 
months of summer, no midnight period for their stipulated 
prayers. Menaces and promises were equally vain ; the 
soldiers and labourers deserted, and this great project of 
uniting the west with the east was finally abandoned. 



78 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



The design of uniting Europe and Asia, by joining the 
Caspian with the Bosphorus, had indeed been conceived long 
before the time of Selim. Seleucus Nicator, ages before, 
had planned the junction of the Euxine with the Cimmerian 
Bosphorus. When the Turkish government attempted the 
measure, it had become of the greatest importance to that 
empire both in a military and commercial point of view. It 
would have enabled the Turks to have the more easily in- 
vaded and subdued Persia, and to have held in check all 
those numerous tribes which inhabited those regions to the 
north of the Euxine and Caspian seas. The rich commerce 
of India had already found another way to Europe by the 
discovery of the Cape of Good Hope ; and had the European 
seas been more nearly approximated to the Indus, by open- 
ing a navigable route from the Euxine to the Caspian, and to 
the river Oxis, Turkey, in the hands of a commercial and 
industrious people, might have still retained a great part of 
the lucrative traffic of the East. But the Turks, under the 
influence of superstition, and enslaved to a tax of nocturnal 
prayers, abandoned the noblest enterprise they had ever 
undertaken, upon a trifling and accidental reverse of their 
arms. This project was conceived by Cassim Pasha, the 
same individual who constructed, by his liberality, the quar- 
ter of Constantinople which bears his name. To Turkey 
only one immediate advantage marked this enterprise : a 
horde of 30,000 Tartars, friendly to the Turks, abjured the 
Russian sceptre, and came to tenant the banks of the Don. 

Selim might endeavour to efface from his mind the vex- 
ation which he felt from the failure of the scheme to unite 
the Don with the Wolga : he might ascribe the failure to 
superhuman causes, and thus find an excuse for his own 
weakness and the superstition of his subjects. But whatever 
might have been his feelings, his indolent mind was roused 
to a state of temporary activity ; and he meditated a design 
marked by all the perfidy of the age in which he lived. 
The Ottoman Porte and the Venetians were at peace ; but 
treaties were mere truces to be broken when convenient, 
and could be disposed of by a festa of the Mufti. In direct 
opposition to his grand vizier, Selim decided to attack 
Cyprus. 



SELIM II. 



77 



Cyprus, a large and beautiful island in the Levant, is 
situated at nearly an equal distance from Caramania on the 
north, and Syria on the east. It is about 70 leagues in 
length, and about 30 in its greatest breadth from north to 
south. This island was in a peculiar manner consecrated to 
Venus, the mother of the graces, the loves, and the pleasures. 
She was called by the poets not only the Cyprian but the 
Paphian queen, because she was worshipped by the whole 
island, but especially by the inhabitants of Paphos, one of 
its most populous cities, where an hundred altars daily 
smoked with male animals offered in sacrifice, and perfumed 
with the richest odours of Arabian incense. Paphos, Idalia, 
and Amathonte combine in their very names the tones of 
voluptuousness. Thirty cities had embellished ancient Cy- 
prus, but in 1570 they were to be chiefly traced by their 
ruins. Yet the island even then maintained a numerous 
population, as attested by a list of 1,500 villages. The city 
of Constanza was built on the remains of Salamine, while 
Buffo recalls, in its name, the celebrated Paphos. Simisso 
can be very imperfectly traced in Amathonte ; and Idalia is 
only to be known from a few obscure ruins under the name 
of Dalin. Nicosia and Famagousta, the two principal modern 
cities in the island, are the representatives of the ancient 
Ledra and of Arsinoe. Nicosia occupies the centre of the 
island, while Famagousta stands on the shore opposite to the 
coast of Syria. 

Since the conquest of Cyprus by the Turks, its most valu- 
able productions and riches have vanished, and its inhabi- 
tants have gradually fallen from the high station which they 
held while under the Venetians, to the most abject state of 
apathy and indolence. " The rigours of an oppressive domi- 
nation," says M. Sonnini, " have shed their baneful influence 
over fields, arts, and men. Valleys once shaded by useful or 
agreeable trees, which culture enriched with harvests of 
every species, or adorned with verdure and flowers, now re- 
main uncultivated, and overrun with brambles, and other 
stubborn, meagre, and useless plants. One may travel whole 
days in plains deserted and abandoned to that mournful and 
pernicious fecundity, which on lands impatient to produce, 
is sterility's constant companion." The account which Dr. 



78 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



Clarke has given us of the present state of this island is 
equally melancholy, and affords a striking lesson of the effects 
of a tyrannical and selfish policy. 

Mustapha Pasha, the adviser of the war, and the rival of 
the Yizier-Azem, led the army, and the celebrated Piali, the 
successor of Barbarossa and Dragut, commanded the fleet 
destined for the expedition against Cyprus. The fortifications 
of Famagousta being in a dilapidated state, presented the 
most vulnerable point of attack ; but Mustapha, in order to 
gratify the greedy and ferocious Janizaries, obstinately re- 
solved upon besieging Nicosia, the capital of the king- 
dom, the celebrated abode of the kings of Cyprus. The 
riches of Nicosia presented a lure to the rapacious Turks. 
The siege lasted fourteen days, and was remarkable for the 
display of that valour and obstinacy characteristic of Turkish 
assaults. The city was carried by force, and the inhabitants 
experienced all the horrors of unrestrained and ruthless 
cruelty. Twenty thousand Christians of both sexes perished ; 
and the interesting residence of so many illustrious kings 
sunk into the obscurity of a Turkish pashalic. 

The short interval occupied in the siege of Nicosia had 
been employed by Bragandino in strengthening the defences 
of Famagousta, the siege of which commenced in April and 
was protracted to June, by the bravery of its heroic de- 
fenders. The usual system of assault and bloodshed marked 
the attack and defence, and every effort of Mustapha proved 
unavailing to overcome the devotion and energy of the de- 
fenders. After the means of subsistence had entirely dis- 
appeared, dogs, rats, and the most disgusting matter were 
used for food ; and every hope of succour having failed, 
Bragandino capitulated upon the pledge of safety and liberty 
to depart. This solemn stipulation was speedily broken by 
the perfidious Mustapha, and the heroic Bragandino, after 
the most cruel insults, was inhumanly fla}^ed alive. The re- 
mainder of the island surrendered, and the whole of Cyprus 
thus became annexed from thenceforth to the Ottoman 
empire. 

The honour and public spirit of Europe were involved in 
this unequal contest ; but the Christian states, engaged in 
private wars, forgot alike their interest and their duty, and 



SELIM II. 



79 



they allowed this bulwark of Christendom in the east to be 
finally torn from them. When we consider the length that 
this small maritime state held out against the undivided 
strength of the Ottoman empire, it appears evident that the 
assistance of a friendly fleet would have saved this beautiful 
island from Mahometan dominion. 

But the fall of Cyprus at last roused the western states 
from their slumber ; and a sense of danger rather than a 
feeling of patriotism, healed for a moment their jealousies, 
and a league was formed between the Roman pontiff, King 
Philip II., and the Venetian republic, for their mutual 
defence. 

Prompted by his successful attack upon Cyprus, and tak- 
ing advantage of the discord which prevailed amongst the 
Christian sovereigns, Selim was planning the recovery of 
Tunis, when he heard of the approach of a hostile fleet, upon 
which the Ottoman fleet imprudently entered the Gulf of 
Lepanto. The roadstead of Lepanto, the scene of the battle 
of Actium, between Augustus and Mark Antony, which de- 
cided the fate of the Roman world, was destined to be the 
theatre of the most splendid naval victory of this period. 
The Venetians, who had suffered by the delays of the Chris- 
tians, and exasperated by the scandal which the loss of Cyprus 
brought upon them, despaired of benefiting by the league ; 
but as if destined to reward past misfortunes, the whole 
Turkish fleet, consisting of 200 galleys and 66 frigates or 
brigantines, lay open to attack. Don John of Austria, 
brother of Philip II. King of Spain, at the head of the allied 
fleet, prepared to seize the propitious opportunity. The sea 
seemed covered with vessels ready for the encounter. Ali, 
who commanded the Ottoman fleet, had arranged it in three 
divisions : himself with Partau, a celebrated corsair, occupied 
the centre ; the squadron of the right was commanded by 
Siroc, and the left division by the King of Algiers. The 
Christian fleet consisted of nearly the same number of 
vessels : Don John took the centre ; Doria led the right ; a 
noble Venetian commanded the left. Don John, surrounded 
by the flower of Italy, of Spain, and of the Knights of Malta, 
directed the attack. Shouts of acclamation arose from the 
impatient combatants ; and at seven in the morning the 



80 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



battle commenced with great fury. A Venetian inflicted 
the first blow by sinking the galley of Siroc. The Spaniards, 
emulating the Venetian, opened a terrible fire upon the 
Ottoman's centre ; Ali fell by a cannon ball ; and the 
Spaniards witnessing his death, attacked his vessel, boarded 
her and massacred the crew, and the standard of the cross, 
supplanting that of the crescent, waved from the mast of the 
admiral's galley. At this glorious sight, a universal excla- 
mation of victory burst from the Christian fleet ; and the 
Turks, as if thunderstruck by the unusual circumstance, suf- 
fered themselves to be overthrown and massacred almost 
without resistance. The galleys of the King of Algiers alone 
escaped from the general destruction. 

Occheali was engaging the vessels in the left wing, when 
the cries of victory and the closing of the centre on his 
division warned him of his danger. He passed on with un- 
daunted courage, followed by thirty galleys, through the 
whole centre of the Christian fleet, and gained the open sea. 
This division was the sole relic of the Turkish navy. The 
Ottomans had not received so signal a defeat since the over- 
throw of Bajazet. The Christians took 161 galleys and 12 
frigates. They were occupied a fortnight in dividing the 
spoil, during which they were often on the point of turning 
their arms against each other. Never was such an oppor- 
tunity of humbling a dangerous and aggressive people per- 
mitted to pass away. The consequences which might have 
followed the appearance of the confederates before the walls 
of Constantinople might have produced the most important 
results ; but Philip, the most gloomy and jealous of sove- 
reigns, had no wish to strengthen the Venetian states ; and 
the results of a victory which might have fixed .the maritime 
superiority of Western Europe, was only the capture of one 
or two useless islands. The battle of Lepanto closed for 
the year the naval campaign. 

Notwithstanding, however, the apathy of the Christians, 
the glory of such a victory spread terror throughout the 
Ottoman states, and restored the courage of the confederates. 

Selim sank into the deepest grief ; but he lost no time in 
preparing to encounter the dangers which seemed to await 
him. Fifteen thousand persons were forwarded to strengthen 



SELIM II. 



81 



the fortifications of the Dardanelles, and redoubts were 
formed on the ruins of the tomb of Hecuba, opposite to the 
Cape of Ajax on the Sigean promontory. The alarmed 
populace watched for the appearance of the hostile fleet 
on the waters of the Propontis. Meanwhile Occhiali ar- 
rived with his small division of the armament ; and at 
this crisis the undaunted valour of the Corsair King was 
worth more than a fleet to the Turkish cause. He re- 
vived the spirits of the emperor and the people by undertak- 
ing to defend the capital ; and the sovereign, whose gratitude 
was excited, perhaps by fear, proclaimed him Capitan Pasha 
on the spot. The energetic Occhiali knew better how to 
repair a disaster, than the confederates did to improve their 
success. The Ulema contributed their treasures : workmen, 
sailors, and soldiers were collected from Asia, Africa, and 
Europe ; the forests on the Black Sea supplied timber ; the 
shipwrights of Constantinople worked at the same time 
upon the hulls, the rigging, the sails, and the masts t)f the 
vessels ; and in less than six months, 200 galleys, well 
equipped, covered the port of the capital. 

The grand vizier exhibited to the Venetian minister upon 
this occasion, the dignified self-possession with which the 
Turkish government officially treats the most serious disaster. 
This minister having demanded an audience of Mehemet, he 
could not repress the lurking indications of rejoicing which 
such a victory afforded him. " Learn," said the haughty 
and quick-sighted Ottoman, "that the loss of a fleet to my 
master the Sultan, is as the beard of a man which grows 
the faster for the shaving ; but the loss of Cyprus to Venice, 
is as an arm cut off from the body which no art can replace/*' 

Occhiali, who was without doubt the preserver of the 
empire, was the pupil of Barbarossa, and in the service of the 
Sultan, his talents and valour elevated him to the highest 
rank. Upon his elevation he took the title of Kilig or 6 the 
sword/ Constantinople is indebted to him for the beautiful 
mosque of Top-hana, which he is said to have finished with 
surprising expedition ; and it is even asserted that the first 
story was completed in a night. The capital rang with 
wonder. Kilig, who seems to have united the arts of the 
courtier to the valour of the warrior, said to the Sultan, 

F 



82 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



" this building is erected solely by the hands of the slaves 
of your galleys ; what therefore may you not expect from our 
united efforts, when by your will they are directed against 
your enemies ? " 

The maritime strength of Turkey being regenerated by 
the talents of Kilig, he put to sea with his new fleet, and 
braved the force of the confederates on their own coast. 
Philip II., the chief of the confederates, withdrew his squad- 
rons, and the Venetians were compelled to make peace with 
the loss of Cyprus and part of Dalmatia. 

The distant provinces of the Turkish empire were a con- 
tinual source of anxiety to the Sultans ; and about this 
period, a formidable insurrection broke out in Moldavia, 
which, however, was subdued. Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis 
acknowledged the supremacy of the Ottoman Porte ; and 
with the view of increasing his power in the Mediterranean 
sea, Selim contemplated the reduction of Malta ; but he 
w r as carried off by fever in the ninth year of his reign. 
Overcome by indolence and superstition, this prince devoted 
himself to wine and pleasure ; and worn out by early in- 
temperance and debauchery, he became a prey to super- 
stitious fears, which so affected his mind, that a morbid 
melancholy shortened his life. 

Selim left to his son Amurath, an empire improved by 
the accession of the beautiful island of Cyprus. In Africa 
the Pillars of Hercules marked its boundary, Tripoli, Tunis, 
and Algiers having voluntarily ranged themselves under the 
shadow of the Ottoman throne. In Europe, on the side of 
Moldavia, the frontiers stretched to Podolia ; and in Dal- 
matia, the empire was limited by Zara, Spalatro, and Si- 
benco, the Ottoman frontiers embracing the strong chain of 
mountains which close up these important places. 

But the Ottoman empire now began to hasten to decay. 
Its feeble-minded monarchs became the slaves of the turbulent 
soldiery. The rich provinces of Asia Minor were desolated 
by rebellions. Its treasury was exhausted, and its armies 
were consumed in the swamps of Hungary or in the arid deserts 
of Persia. Surrounded by formidable enemies, whose num- 
bers and power daily increased, and torn by intestine 
divisions, it now appeared impossible that Turkey could long 



SELIM II. 



83 



retain that supremacy which the valour of her armies had 
acquired. 

The English about this period, without perhaps any mutual 
communication with the Turks, or without entertaining any 
spirit of rivalry towards them, endeavoured by a different 
route than that proposed by the Sultan Selim, to establish a 
commerce with the East. 

Queen Elizabeth, sensible how much the defence and 
prosperity of her kingdom depended on its naval power, 
was desirous to encourage commerce and navigation. — The 
communication with Muscovy had been opened in Queen 
Mary's time by the discovery of the passage to Archangel ; 
but the commerce to that country did not begin to be 
carried on till about the year 1569. The Queen obtained 
from the Czar an exclusive patent to the English for the 
whole trade of Muscovy ; and she entered into a national as 
well as a personal alliance with him. This Czar was John 
Basilides, a furious tyrant, who, continually suspecting the 
revolt of his subjects, stipulated to have a safe retreat and 
protection in England. In order the better to ensure this 
resource he proposed to marry an English woman ; and the 
Queen intended to have sent him Lady Ann Hastings, 
daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon ; but when the lady 
w^as informed of the barbarous manners of the country, she 
wisely declined purchasing an empire at the expense of her 
ease and safety. 

The English, encouraged by the privileges which they 
had obtained, ventured farther into those countries than 
any European had formerly done. They transported their 
goods along the Dwina in boats made of one entire tree, 
which they towed and rowed up the stream as far as 
Walogda. Thence they carried their commodities seven 
days' journey by land to Yeraslau, and then down the 
Volga to Astracan. At Astracan they built ships, crossed 
the Caspian Sea, and distributed their manufactures in 
Persia. 

The English trade with Turkey commenced a few years 
later; and that commerce was immediately confined to a 
company by Queen Elizabeth. Before that time the Grand 
Signior had always conceived England to be a dependant 



84 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



province of France; but having heard of the Queen's power 
and reputation, he gave a good reception to the English, 
and even granted them larger privileges than he had given 
to the French. 

After the death of Basilides, his son Theodore revoked 
the patent which the English enjoyed for a monopoly of the 
Russian trade. When the Queen remonstrated against this 
innovation, he told her ministers that princes must carry an 
indifferent hand as well between their subjects as between 
foreigners; and not convert trade, which by the laws of 
nations ought to be common to all, into a monopoly for the 
private gain of a few. So much juster notions of commerce 
were entertained by this barbarian than appear in the con- 
duct of the renowned Queen Elizabeth ! 

The greatest activity prevailed at this period throughout 
the different states of Europe, in extending and improving 
their commercial relations. The spirit of the age indeed 
was strongly bent on naval and military enterprises; many 
successful attempts were made for the discovery of new 
countries, and thus many additional branches of foreign 
commerce were opened up to the different mercantile states 
of Europe. England, especially, had fairly embarked in a 
career of enterprise, which with characteristic energy she 
has ever since continued to pursue. 

None of the advantages arising to Europe from an in- 
creased spirit of enterprise and inquiry extended to Turkey. 
The Turks, indeed, continued to gain great but temporary 
victories by land and sea, and they maintained for a time, 
with the exception of some trifling reverses, not only the 
integrity, but extended the boundaries of their empire. 

The prosperity of a nation like that of Turkey, which 
depends, in a great measure, upon the character and military 
talents of the chief, must necessarily be liable to great fluctua- 
tions. Hence Turkey, according to the character of its 
rulers, might fall at once from the height of its civil and mili- 
tary prosperity, to a state of comparative weakness and dis- 
organization. Such, indeed, must be the fate of every 
country which does not contain within itself the seeds of 
social and political regeneration. 



AMU RATH III. 



85 



AMUR AT H III. 

This prince, even more cowardly and superstitious than his 
father, followed now what appeared to be the established 
practice, of devoting to death all the other males of the 
deceased Sultan's family. This and every other action of 
his reign was prompted and regulated by the reveries of 
astrology. The death of Selim, which had been concealed 
until the arrival of Amurath from Amasia, was announced 
at the rising of the sun, and at the same time the acces- 
sion of Amurath to the throne was proclaimed. The next 
step was the execution of the five brothers of the Sultan, 
who being conducted to his throne, were strangled in his 
presence. By a refinement in cruelty, their mothers 
were called to witness their fate, to be thereby assured of 
their decease. The mother of Soliman, one of the ill-fated 
youths, becoming frantic at the sight, struck a poniard to 
her heart, and joined her breathless remains to his. The 
bodies of the five sons of Selim were borne into the chamber 
of death where their father lay; and the same funeral pomp 
conveyed, with the exception of Amurath, the male race of 
Othman to the tomb of Sancta Sophia. 

The mutinous spirit of the Janizaries greatly in- 
creased during the reign of this feeble prince; but the 
capital was relieved of their presence by a Persian war, 
which continued to occupy the army, and to exhaust the 
treasures of the Sultan for nearly twelve years. Having 
afterwards directed their enthusiasm in defence of the 
Hungarian provinces, Amurath himself was induced by the 
solicitations of his vizier to place his foot in the stirrup, and 
to appear at the head of the army; but his wavering mind 
was so overcome by terror during a violent tempest, that he 
shut himself up in the Seraglio, and fell a victim to his own 
gloomy and imaginary fears. 

He was reclining one day in the Kiosk of Sinan, and 
pensively contemplating the moving picture of the Bosphorus, 
when he heard the musicians singing the melancholy strain 
which he had formerly composed to the words, " I am over- 
whelmed with the burden of my woes; death, this night 



86 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



will be thy triumph. " At this moment two vessels entering 
the porte, saluted, in passing, the point of the Seraglio. 
The report of the cannon broke the crystal window of the 
Kiosk, and the fragments were scattered over the sofa and 
the person of the Sultan. Amurath turned pale, and de- 
clared that his fears were realised. His death took place 
a few days afterwards. 

The Hungarian war continued throughout the reigns of 
his successors 



MAHOMET III. AND ACHMET I. 

The emperor of Germany, Eodolph II., made an alliance 
with the sovereigns of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, 
for the purpose of carrying on active operations against the 
common enemies of Christianity. The Turks had lost much 
of their self-confidence; and since that time, though they 
have sometimes enjoyed a transitory success, the real sta- 
bility of their affairs has constantly declined. They now 
disdained not to call the Tartars to their aid against an 
enemy whom they had formerly despised. But the com- 
bined forces of the Turks and Tartars could not withstand 
the confederated Christians; they were defeated in several 
engagements, and many of their cities fell into the hands of 
the conquerors. In a short time the Turks were driven 
from every place they had held in Transylvania, Wallachia, 
and Moldavia, while in Hungary the plague and famine 
made such havock among their troops, that of 85,000 who 
had entered it, in a short time only 8,000 remained. They 
w^ere stript of all their conquests on the sido of Persia by 
Shah Abbas the Great ; and the empire was saved more by 
the clemency of the conqueror than by its own power of 
resistance. 



MUSTAPHA, 



A weak and imbecile prince, occupied the throne for a few 
months, and was deposed to make room for 



OTHMAN II. — AMURATH IV. 



87 



OTHMAN II., 

Who ascended the throne a. d. 1618. Othnian was en- 
dowed with qualities that might have enabled him to revive 
the glories of the reign of Soliman ; but he was destitute alike 
of both prudence and experience. His pride and severity 
excited against him the hatred of the Janizaries, and con- 
trary to the advice of his wisest councillors, his ambition 
and obstinacy hurried him into a war with the Poles who at 
that time possessed a military fame not inferior to that of 
any other European nation. He led an army of 400,000 
Turks to the banks of the Dniester, and after having seven 
times assaulted the Polish camp with the most deter- 
mined courage and perseverance, he was compelled to retire 
in disgrace, with his discomfited and discontented troops, 
A revolt of the Janizaries immediately followed, in which 
Othman was deposed and strangled, and Mustapha again 
raised to the throne. This stupid prince enjoyed the pa- 
geant of royalty only for a short period, when the sceptre 
was placed in the hands of 



AMURATH IV. 

This prince was possessed of great endowments both of 
body and mind ; and had these endowments not been obscured 
by licentiousness and cruelty, he might have shed addi- 
tional lustre on the Ottoman throne. The insolence and 
rapacity of the Janizaries, who had now adopted the system 
of commanding their sovereigns, and of raising whom they 
pleased to the throne, first attracted the attention of Amu- 
rath. These lawless soldiery had murdered the kaimaken, 
or lieutenant of the Grand Vizier, in the presence of the 
Sultan. Amurath marked the deed in silence, but watched 
his opportunity of revenge. The most seditious were 
arrested and privately executed; detachments were from 
time to time sent off' to the frontiers; and when their num- 
bers in the capital were thus no longer formidable, Amurath 
issued an order for their destruction. This order was ac- 



88 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



companied by &fetva of the Mufti enjoining the inhabitants 
of Constantinople and other principal cities to take up arms 
and slay every Janizary within their walls. The order was 
rigorously obeyed, and this once powerful body were re- 
duced to such weakness that they became incapable of any 
seditious movement during the whole of this prince's reign. 

A war of thirty years now broke out in Europe, which 
relieved Amurath from all apprehensions on the side of 
Christendom. He was therefore enabled to direct the whole 
strength of the empire against Bagdad, which had been re- 
duced by the Persians. Three hundred thousand Ottomans 
surrounded the devoted city; thirty days it withstood their 
incessant assaults, and it fell at last by the treachery of 
the governor, and was given up to massacre and pillage. 
The bloody mandate was in the process of being executed, 
when Shah Cali, the Orpheus of Persia, presented himself 
before Amurath, and sung to the Scheschader the downfall 
and misery of his native city with such intense and touching 
enthusiasm, that the conqueror was melted to tears, and 
commanded the slaughter to be suspended. Amurath led 
back his army loaded with plunder, and made a triumphant 
entry into his capital; but he did not long survive this im- 
portant capture, being soon thereafter carried off by a fever, 
the consequence of a deep debauch, in the 31st year of his 
age. 

The bravery and skill of Amurath in war, obtained for 
him the surname of Gazi, or conqueror. His energy and 
steadiness of purpose assured the internal tranquillity of the 
empire, which during the former reigns had been frequently 
disturbed by the arrogance and outrages of the Janizaries. 
Of all his army none could excel him in handling the bow, 
or wielding the scimitar, or was so expert in managing his 
horse and throwing the jerid. Amurath was cruel even to 
ferocity. The slightest act of disobedience was punished 
with death, which he often executed with his own hand ; 
and so fond was he of shedding blood, that he is said some- 
times to have sallied out of his palace at midnight with a 
drawn sword, and to have put to death any unfortunate 
person whom he chanced to meet. He was early addicted 



IBRAHIM. 



89 



to an excessive indulgence in wine, which continued through 
life, and brought him at last to a premature grave. 

IBRAHIM, 

The only surviving male of the house of Othman, succeeded 
to the sceptre. Timid and feeble, indolent and effeminate, 
he resigned himself entirely to the pleasures of the harem, 
and left the direction of affairs to the Grand Vizier Mustapha, 
the favourite of Amurath. The Yizier infused into the 
government of Ibrahim the energy and decision of its former 
master; he overawed the refractory soldiers by severe dis- 
cipline, and cut off the Pachas whom he suspected of sediti- 
ous purposes. He cleared the Euxine of the Cossack 
pirates, and expelled them from the city of AzofF; but he 
soon after fell a sacrifice to the resentment of Kiosem, the 
Valide Sultana, whose influence predominated within the 
walls of the Seraglio. 

Determining that they would no longer tolerate the do- 
minion of the Venetians in the iEgean sea, the Turks turned 
their arms against the island of Candia. This beautiful 
island, the ancient Crete, forms, as it were, the base to the 
Grecian Archipelago, and is about sixty leagues in length, 
and fifteen at its greatest breadth. This island enjoys a 
most delightful climate, equally removed from excessive heat 
and violent cold. But what conduces chiefly to the salubrity 
of Candia, is the complete absence of those noxious vapours 
which arise from marshy grounds, and the abundance of 
salutary plants. The waters never stand in a state of stag- 
nation ; and scarcely is there a morass to be found in the 
island. The mountains and hills are overspread with vari- 
ous kinds of thyme, and with a multitude of odoriferous and 
balsamic plants : the rivulets which flow down the valleys 
are overhung with myrtles and laurel roses. Clumps of 
orange, citron, and almond trees are plentifully scattered 
over the fields. The gardens are adorned with tufts of 
Arabian jasmine. In spring they are bestrewed with beds 
of violets, and some extensive plains are arrayed in saffron. 
The cavities of the rocks are fringed with sweet-smelling 



00 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



dittany. From the hills, from the vales, and the plains, on 
all hands there arise clouds of exquisite perfumes, which em- 
balm the air and render it a luxury to breathe in. The 
climate has been famous from the remotest antiquity ; and 
Hippocrates, the father of physic, considered it the best re- 
storer of health to his debilitated patients, whom he sent 
hither to breathe an atmosphere impregnated with such de- 
lightful emanations. Under this gentle sky the Turks have 
acquired a taller stature, a more robust make, and a more 
majestic step than their countrymen on the continent ; and 
it has been matter of surprise that the natives who enjoy the 
same blessings of nature, should have degenerated both in 
form and beauty. But the cause may be found in the yoke of 
cruel slavery with which they are oppressed, which tends 
to degrade the body as well as the mind. They drag out 
their days in fear and anxiety, and are sometimes hurried 
by despair to put a violent end to their existence. Their 
countenances are disfigured by marks of servility and mean- 
ness ; and the high-spirited Cretans, once the jealous guard- 
ians of liberty and the arts, are now converted into the 
cowardly, abject, and indolent Candians. 

Here disease is scarcely known. The salubrity of the 
climate is equalled by the fertility of the soil, which is capa- 
ble of producing in the richest profusion, whatever can de- 
light the senses or gratify the appetite. The most delicious 
and the most fragrant flowers are its spontaneous produc- 
tions. Forests of pines, cedars, and firs, crown the summits 
and cover the declivities of the mountains. The plains are 
well stocked with game, and the groves and gardens are 
filled with a variety of singing birds, among which are the 
linnet, the nightingale, the goldfinch, the bullfinch, the 
lark, and the thrush. 

But in this rich and delightful country, where the soil re- 
quires very little labour from the hand of the husbandman, 
to produce in profusion, not only the necessaries but the 
luxuries of life, the Candian cannot or dare not appreciate 
the blessings and advantages which nature has so liberally 
scattered around him. Oppressed by his tyrannical masters, 
— exposed to insult, to outrage, and even to robbery from 
every janizary, he feels no inclination to increase by labour, 



IBRAHIM. 



91 



a produce which he might soon have the mortification of 
seeing pass into the hands of those whom he has so much 
reason to hate. 

The situation of this island as an emporium for com- 
merce can scarcely be surpassed. Placed at almost an 
equal distance from Europe, Asia, and Africa, it bears an 
equal relation to these three quarters of the world, and might 
be rendered the storehouse of their various productions and 
manufactures ? but like its other advantages, its favourable 
position for trade is entirely neglected by the Turks, who 
have ever been utter strangers to industry and the arts ; and 
the Greeks dare not take measures to promote either the 
public welfare or their private advantage. Were Candia in 
the hands of an enlightened and industrious people, it might 
become the granary of the surrounding nations. But every 
species of improvement, whether in agriculture or commerce, 
is disgraced and persecuted by the Turks ; and indolence 
and effeminacy have so destroyed all spirit of emulation and 
exertion, that the inhabitants of this fertile region, are 
compelled to draw from other lands the means of their 
subsistence. 

The Turks, who had previously made several attempts 
upon Candia, now obtained by perfidy what they could not 
accomplish by open force. During the preparations of a 
mighty armament which was destined to be employed against 
this island, the Venetian ambassadors were told with the 
most solemn assurances, that Malta was the object to be at- 
tacked, and that the republic need be under no apprehension 
for the safety of her possessions. The ambassadors were 
even loaded with presents, and the fleet was directed to bear 
for Cape Matapan, as if bound to a point far to the west of 
the Archipelago. But in the midst of these protestations of 
amity, the Turkish fleet, consisting of 400 sail, with 60,000 
troops on board, entered the bay of Caneo, in 1645. The 
Venetian governor, Cornaro, who had made no preparations for 
their reception, was awakened from his seeming security, only 
by the intelligence of their descent upon the island. A body 
of 3,500 infantry and a small number of cavalry, were the 
only force he had to oppose to this powerful armament ; and 
his distance from Venice deprived him of all hope of a speedy 



92 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

reinforcement. The Turks having seized the forts upon the 
island St. Theodore, invested the city of Canea, whose 
garrison consisted only of 1,000 regular troops. These, 
however, being strengthened by 250 more, which Cornaro 
found means to throw into the city, made a desperate resist- 
ance. Monks and women appeared upon the walls in the 
midst of the defenders ; and for two months they held out 
against the mighty power of the Turks. Despairing at last 
of relief from Venice, with the walls breached in three 
places, and the defenders reduced to 500 men, exhausted 
with fatigue, and covered with wounds, they made an hon- 
ourable capitulation, and marched out of the city with the 
honours of war. Twenty thousand Ottomans was the sacri- 
fice which the Caneans had exacted for the loss of their city. 
The fall of Ketimo soon succeeded. Cornaro fell in the 
ranks of his soldiers when boldly opposing the approach of 
the Turks to that city. The whole of the island submitted 
to the conquerors except the capital, Candia, which alone 
owned the authority of Venice. 

In the meantime Ibrahim had rendered himself obnoxious 
to all classes of his subjects, by his open and voluptuous 
sensuality ; and in an insurrection of the Janizaries, in- 
stigated by the Mufti, he was deposed and soon after put to 
death. 



MUHAMMED IV., 

The infant son of Ibrahim, was scarcely seven years old 
when he became master of the Ottoman throne. The reins 
of government were necessarily committed to another ; and 
for the first time in the annals of his race, they were firmly 
grasped by a female hand. 

Kiosem, the Sultana Valide, the mother of the three last 
emperors, held the first station, not less by her rank than by 
the vigour of her mind. The year in which Ibrahim per- 
ished was notable for similar sanguinary and striking events, 
both in Asia and Europe, such, indeed, as prove the insta- 
bility of human power, by the reverses which overtake the 
great of the earth. The East furnished one of these ex- 



MUHAMMED IV. 



93 



amples, in the calamitous fortune which overwhelmed the 
splendid Mogul Shah Jehan, whom his son Aurengzebe de- 
throned. That successful prince severally vanquished his 
brothers in rotation and put them to death. England ex- 
hibited the extraordinary spectacle of the trial and execution 
of her sovereign Charles I. 

For some time the ascendency of the Sultana Kiosem was 
acquiesced in. But jealousies and intrigues arose in the court 
in which the Janizaries, the Ulema, and the Mufti performed 
their several parts. The Aga of the Janizaries had already 
decided upon the dethronement of Muhammed, and the ele- 
vation of Soliman, a younger brother, who had no longer a 
mother. Kiosem acquiesced, as it would confirm her rights 
as the Sultana Yalide. Their scheme was counteracted by 
the firmness of Grand Yizier Seaus Pasha, whose presence 
of mind seemed to equal his courage and firmness. He 
hastened to the Seraglio, and his first step was to secure the 
person of Sultana Yalide Kiosem, who fell at once into his 
power. Secluded in her apartments, and anticipating the 
successful development of her schemes, a few hours changed 
her prospects to an ignominious death. The Janizaries ac- 
quiescing in the election of Bactas Pasha, as Aga, they re- 
turned to duty and allegiance ; and the new functionary 
evinced his zeal and obedience by secretly executing all those 
most obnoxious to himself and hostile to the Sultan. 

But tranquillity did not long prevail. Those who favoured 
the cause of Yalide Kiosem were exasperated to the highest 
pitch. They simultaneously assembled, and assailing the 
detached parties of Janizaries, cut them to pieces. They 
attacked the palace of the Grand Yizier and chief Pashas, 
involving every one who opposed them in destruction. 

It now became necessary to elect a new vizier, and the 
black eunuchs, who amid these dangers and revolts directed 
public affairs, mutually cast their eyes upon an individual to 
fulfil the eminent duties of the viziriat, who, on account of his 
insignificance, had been overlooked in the revolt. So little 
are the qualities of men understood by superficial observers, 
that the person thus promoted proved eventually the most 
eminent vizier of the Turkish annals, and the founder of an 
illustrious house. He was the son of a renegade, by name 



94 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



Kiuperli, and supposed to be of French extraction. His 
talents enabled him effectually to disperse the spahis among 
the sanjaks of Asia, and to re-establish internally, the due 
administration of the laws, as well as to pursue the war in 
Candia. 

Meantime the siege of Candia languished, and the Vene- 
tian fleet gained various successes over the Turks. 

Mehemet Kiuperli, with the view of employing the 
dangerous soldiery of the capital, availed himself of a pre- 
tended rebellion in Transylvania to light up anew the flames 
of war in Hungary. 

The Sultan, whose mind was imbued with the terrible 
scenes of his infancy, willingly adopted the wishes of his 
Vizier, and left a capital polluted with blood, to follow the 
chase amid the fine plains and scenery around Adrianople. 
During the absence of the Sultan, the aged Vizier coerced the 
capital with a rod of iron, and was preparing to lead an 
army into Hungary. The weight of eighty-six years had 
not quenched his physical ardour, when death closed the 
career of one of the most enlightened and regretted of the 
Ottoman statesmen. Achmet, the son of Kiuperli, was 
created Vizier, and he emulated, if not surpassed, the fame of 
his father. 

Achmet Kiuperli bent his whole energies to the war in 
Hungary, and in the spring of 1662, possessed himself of 
the strong fortress of Neuhassel, whence he proceeded to 
ravage Moravia. 

Two years had passed in the petty warfare of posts and 
of strong places until Montecuculi, in 1664, at the head of 
a French contingent, opposed the Vizier on the Kaab. The 
Grand Vizier, impatient to find his career thus arrested, 
gave the command to his soldiers to pass the river. The 
French general having permitted a body of about fifteen 
thousand to cross, charged them, and entirely cut them off. 
The inundation of the Kaab impeded their companions from 
coming to their assistance ; although the Janizaries and 
spahis, emulating their ancient bravery, threw themselves 
into the flood, and struggled to arrive on the hostile banks. 
The combat was protracted from nine in the morning until 



MUHAMMED IT. 



95 



four in the afternoon. The loss of the Turks was computed 
to be about 30,000 men. 

The consequences of this victory might have led to the 
most decisive advantages in favour of the imperialists ; but 
from circumstances arising out of the frequently perplexing 
positions of the Austrian emperors, a treaty was concluded 
highly favourable to the Ottomans ; and in this instance, 
they gained more by a defeat than often was secured by a 
victory. The interests of Hungary were entirely neglected 
in the treaty, which excited great discontent, and soon led 
to a renewal of the war. Kiuperli returned in triumph to 
Adrianople, and was preparing to direct the Ottoman power 
to the long protracted siege of Candia, when a danger of 
another, though not of a new kind, menaced the empire. 

A Jewish impostor, named Sabatei Sevi, announced his 
mission to his countrymen of being the long-expected Mes- 
siah ; and while he drew crowds of followers to Gaza, an- 
other fanatic, the accomplice of Sevi, gave himself out at 
Jerusalem as the prophet Elias, appearing to testify to the 
pretended Messiah. The progress of these artful impostors 
became serious ; but Kiuperli, although disdaining to turn 
aside for the pretensions of obscure fanatics, judged it pro- 
per to repress these disorders, which he effected with ad- 
mirable sagacity and without bloodshed. By employing the 
skilful weapons of flattery, he persuaded the infatuated Sab- 
atei, that the emperor only awaited his preaching to become 
a convert, and invited him to repair to the imperial city. 

It is surprising that this impostor could have been so 
easily deluded ; but he who begins by imposing on others 
frequently ends by imposing on himself. Sabatei, however, 
embarked with twenty of his disciples, and he arrived at 
Adrianople where the Sultan then was. The progress of 
Sevi resembled a triumph : crowds prostrated themselves 
before him, and strewed his path with flowers. But his tri- 
umph was of short duration. Being conducted to the pres- 
ence of the emperor, and having avowed his divine mission, 
his confidence forsook him before the majesty of the Otto- 
man throne. Muhammed challenged him to establish his 
claim by a miracle, which this pretended divinity dared not 
refuse. The whole of the population of Adrianople had as- 



96 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



sembled on a great plain to witness the transaction. Sabatci 
was stripped and tied to a column, while the ichoglaus, with 
their bows bent, were prepared, at the signal of their master, 
to direct their arrows to his heart. Sabatei had pretended to 
be invulnerable ; but the dreadful preparation pulled off the 
flimsy mask ; and the impostor, humiliated, terrified, and 
melted into tears, made a public avowal of having abused 
the credulity of the people. 

Mulm milled gave him the usual option of conversion to the 
law of the Koran, or to be impaled for an impostor. Tiie 
weakness of Sabatei made him accept the former, and the 
sect became extinguished. So prone is the human mind to 
a tendency to be deceived, that the mission of Sabatei was 
recognised among his countrymen the Jews many years after 
his decease, and traces of it are said still to be lurking among 
the Jews of Salonica. 

Having allayed the excitement of fanaticism, Achmet 
Kiuperli pressed forward his immense preparations to ter- 
minate the siege of Candia, which had surpassed in duration 
the celebrated war of Troy. It was in the spring of 1667 
tli at- he passed into the island of Candia with a chosen army 
of 100,000 combatants. The fosse of the city was deep 
and wide, and the ramparts were strengthened with seven 
bastions, and the whole circuit protected by the citadel of 
Demitre. The Grand Vizier took his post before the bastion 
of Panigra, whilst the Aga of the Janizaries, and the several 
Pashas, had each a point of attack assigned to them. 

The defence of Candia immortalizes the annals of Venice, 
and its duration and events are as remarkable as they are 
interesting. The struggle which she maintained against the 
overwhelming superiority of the Turkish armies, gilds the 
declining fortunes of the queen of the Adriatic. The mere 
recital of the memorable incidents of the siege would alone 
fill a volume. On the one side, we see the entire power of 
the Ottoman empire collected to take a single town ; on the 
other all the resources of art and valour displayed to avert 
its fall, The Turks, continually reinforced, often sacrificed 
a hundred of their soldiers to succeed in slaughtering one 
Christian; but their courage, perseverance and fanaticism, 
sustained them in the protracted conflict. The fortifications 



MUHAMMED IV. 



97 



appeared to arise day by day from their ruins, notwithstand- 
ing that the artillery of the besieged caused terrible havoc. 
Frequently throwing down their arms in despair, the Turks 
refused to advance, although urged by promises, menaces and 
wounds. The natural situation of the place was particularly 
strong; and the French and Italian volunteers, emulous of 
glory, continually reinforced the unfortunate garrison. So 
obstinate was the attack and defence, that it may truly be 
said, that there was not one foot of ground which was not 
moistened by the blood of the combatants. If a wall fell 
by the fire of the batteries, another had arisen behind it ; 
and indeed so many obstacles and losses would have deterred 
the besiegers, but that they were led by Kiuperli, and pos- 
sessed to an extraordinary degree, the physical qualities and 
stubborn obstinacy which distinguish their national cha- 
racter. 

It was immediately after the fall of Eetimo, that the 
Turks sat down before Candia. The plague had been in- 
troduced into the island by some Turkish reinforcements, 
and had spread with such rapidity that many of the inhabi- 
tants fell before its fury, and others, to escape its ravages, 
had fled into the Yenetian territories on the Continent. 
Candia was thus in a manner depopulated; scarcely a Greek 
was to be seen in the open country ; for such as had escaped 
from the pestilence took refuge in the different fortresses ; 
and the Turks themselves had suffered so much both by 
disease and the sword, that they were compelled to raise 
the siege in 1649 and retire to Canea. But in the following 
year they were enabled by the arrival of fresh troops to re- 
new the siege, which they prosecuted with such vigour, that 
they soon made themselves masters of one of the advanced 
forts. This being turned against the city, proved so trouble- 
some to the besieged, that they were obliged to blow it up. 
The Venetians had now, however, got possession of the sea. 
The Ottoman fleet had been defeated in several engagements, 
and their supplies were every year intercepted in the straits 
of the Dardanelles. Depressed by some severe losses and 
the want of succours, the Turks had converted the siege of 
Candia into a blockade; while the Venetians, on the other 
hand, elated by success, attempted the recapture of Canea 

Gr 



98 



HISTORY OP THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



in 1660, which, however, when about to surrender, was 
snatched from their grasp by the appearance of the pasha of 
Rhodes, who having escaped the Venetian galleys which 
were stationed to intercept him, but which were becalmed 
off Cape Spada, reinforced the defenders with 2,000 men. 
The Turks were now commanded to appear again, before 
Candia, and to make every effort for its reduction. For 
six years, however, their efforts were unavailing, and it was 
not till they had been reinforced by the formidable army 
under the Grand Vizier, and supported by a numerous artil- 
lery that they made any impression upon the Venetian 
work. A rapid demolition now commenced. All the ex- 
terior forts were destroyed; and the walls, battered by in- 
cessant discharges of cannon, gave way in all quarters. The 
Turkish troops, encouraged by the presents and promises of 
their chiefs, performed prodigies of valour; and during the 
year 1667, it is recorded that 500 mines were blown up; 
18 combats were fought in the underground works, 17 
sallies were made by the besieged; 32 times the city was 
assaulted; and 20,000 Turks and 3,000 Venetians fell in 
the contest. The Candians, however, though reduced to 
the most dreadful extremities, were still undismayed, and 
held out for three years more against all the forces of the 
Ottoman empire. Succours from France under the Duke 
Noailles, had animated their hopes. But the first sally of 
their new allies was discouraging and disastrous, and soon 
led to the surrender of their city. The command of the for- 
lorn hope had been intrusted to the Duke of Beaufort, 
admiral of France. He advanced furiously against the 
enemy, and attacked them within their trenches ; but in the 
midst of the engagement, a magazine of powder was set on 
fire, when Beaufort and the flower of the French leaders 
disappeared for ever. The soldiers fled in disorder, and 
the Duke of Noailles with difficulty effected a safe retreat 
within the city. The French accused the Venetians of 
treachery, and prepared to reimbark. Their departure de- 
termined the fate of Candia, which, after a siege of 24 years, 
surrendered to the Turks. Of more than 30,000 Christians 
who had entered this city since the beginning of the siege, 
500 only remained, and above 100,000 Ottomans perished 



MUHAMMED IV. 



99 



in front of its walls. The Grand Yizier entered Candia on 
the 4th October 1670. The Candians were honourably 
treated by the Vizier, who, through fear perhaps of farther 
assistance being granted by their Christian neighbours to 
these formidable foes, allowed them to retain the small forts 
of Sude, Grabusa, and Spina Lonqua, for the purposes of 
trade only. 

Candia, the capital of the island which bears its name, is 
situated on a beautiful plain, watered by the Ceratus, and 
is supposed to occupy the site of the ancient Heraclea. It 
received the name of Chandak from the Saracens, who on 
their first arrival on the island built the fortress of that 
name, and which was converted by the Venetians into 
Candia. The city is of a semicircular form, about four miles in 
circumference, and is strongly fortified by walls, ditches and 
advanced works. The streets and squares are regular, and 
well built, and are evidently the work of the Venetians. 
The many beautiful churches built by the Venetians, are 
nearly all converted into mosques. The harbour of Candia 
is naturally a fine basin, securely sheltered from every 
storm, and if properly cleared might admit forty sail of 
merchant vessels. 

The island of Candia contained at one time upwards of 
a million of inhabitants. But in 1779, M. Savary reckons 
them at 350,000. The population of the city of Candia is 
estimated to be about 14,000. 

The glory of the Venetian state was augmented by its 
disasters, while the Ottoman empire lost its formidable 
character, not only on account of the destruction of the 
greater part of its fleet, which never again regained its as- 
cendency, but also by the time consumed in the siege. A 
circumstance which indicates the Ottoman policy, was the 
silence which the Porte observed regarding the infraction of 
the ancient treaty of alliance and defence, caused by the 
succours openly afforded to the Venetians under the French 
flag. In an interview with Kiuperli, the Marquis of Nointel 
remarked, that " the French are the real friends of Turkey." 
" The French are our friends," replied the Vizier smiling, 
" but we always find them with our enemies." 

During the period of this siege, the Greeks began to 



100 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



intermix themselves with the most important matters of the 
policy and intercourse of Turkey with the Christian powers. 
Kiuperli had the sagacity to perceive that the hour was past 
when the Ottoman power could dictate the law of Europe, 
and he discovered the necessity of managing the interests of 
her policy more with the refinements of diplomacy, than 
the fierceness of the Turkish character had hitherto allowed 
them to adopt. The Greeks, subtle and presuming by 
nature, plumed themselves upon this source of intrigues as 
ardently as if it were a renewal of their ancient lustre. For 
more than two hundred years, the Greeks, bowed under the 
Ottoman yoke, had devoted themselves to commerce and the 
mechanical arts, when Achmet Kiuperli bestowed on the 
Greek Panajotte the office of interpreter, or dragoman, of 
the Ottoman Porte. This piece of good fortune awakened 
among the Greeks the natural spirit of intrigue and am- 
bition which has marked them at every period of their his- 
tory. Hence arose a race of adroit, ambitious, and intel- 
lectual men, who by the necessity of employing their talents 
upon the divan, and by skilful arrangements and submissive 
compliances, succeeded in the functions of confidential or 
diplomatic agents. This portion of the Turkish government 
henceforth became more enlightened, and more ably admin- 
istered for the true interests of the state. 

The siege of Candia had shed a lustre on the arms of 
Muhammed, and attached new and important tribes to the 
shadow of his sceptre. The Cossacks, weary of the Polish 
yoke, threw themselves under the protection of Turkey. The 
Poles, who regarded themselves as the lords of this active 
race, resented their crime. The country of the Zaporagian 
Cossacks, is the vast peninsula formed by the Dniester and 
Dnieper. It is intersected throughout by marshes and defiles, 
and presented a most important frontier for either Poland or 
Turkey. The Sultan, himself, at the head of a hundred and 
fifty thousand men, passed the Danube near Galatz, in Mol- 
davia, and formed the siege of Kaminiek. After nine days 
of open trenches the bulwark of Poland surrendered. A 
German officer, furious at the capitulation, secretly set fire 
to the powder magazine, and blew up the citadel, together 
with four thousand Janizaries. 



MUHAMMED IV. 



101 



The fall of Kaminiek spread consternation throughout 
Poland ; indeed, so rapid was the progress of the Turkish 
arms, that within the short space of six weeks, the whole of 
Podolia submitted. The Tartars ravaged the country, and 
possessed themselves of vast spoil and eighty thousand cap- 
tives : but John Sobieski, Grand Marshal of the crown, way- 
laid their retreat, attacked and defeated them, and recovered 
a great part of their booty. The King of Poland, terrified 
at the success of the Turkish arms, signed an ignominious 
peace, whereby he relinquished the important districts of 
the Ukraine to the Cossacks, and Podolia to the Turks, 
consenting also to pay a yearly tribute of twenty-two thou- 
sand crowns. 

The Poles, enraged at the baseness of the treaty, called 
out a levy of the entire force of the kingdom, and conferred 
the command on Sobieski. Muhammed, whose forces were 
already in part disbanded, hastened to assemble them, and 
crossing the Danube, he taxed the Poles with perfidy and 
dissimulation. The two armies met between the Dniester 
and Danube. The contest was fierce and bloody ; but the 
Waiwodes of Moldavia and Wallachia passing over to the 
Poles, turned the battle, and the Ottoman troops, betrayed 
and confounded, sustained a signal defeat. The death of 
the King of Poland arrested the plans of Sobieski, the pres- 
ence of himself and his army being necessary at the ap- 
proaching election of the Polish crown at Warsaw. Mean- 
time the Turks recovered the greatest part of Podolia. 

After protracted debates, John Sobieski united the suf- 
frages of the electors, and the crown of Poland was placed 
on his brow. Sobieski was one of the last illustrious mon- 
archs that filled the throne of Poland. Had the people been 
worthy of the genius of the sovereign, Poland might still 
have occupied its place in the map of Europe. To a noble 
and elevated mind, he united all the virtues and qualities 
necessary for a great warrior or an accomplished monarch. 
His court was brilliant, and filled with strangers of rank and 
distinction. " The spirit of discord and anarchy, " says Mr. 
Coxe, " was laid for a time by his transcendent genius. 
Under his auspices, Poland seemed to recover from the ca- 
lamities which had so long oppressed her ; and again recover 



102 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



her ancient splendour : such is the powerful ascendency of a 
great and superior mind." 

An event which appears to have been little noticed at the 
time, but the importance of which is felt at the present hour, 
was the transfer of the allegiance of the Cossacks of the 
Ukraine to the Eussian Czar. The Sultan, enraged at the 
defection of the Waiwodes, and distrusting the proffers of 
Christian auxiliaries, rejected the aid which the Hetman of- 
fered him ; and to revenge himself of the slight, the Het- 
man applied to the Czar, who gladly welcomed his suit ; and 
the Cossacks became henceforth tributaries of the Muscovite 
emperor. Modern times have beheld these uncultivated 
natives of the Borysthenes overrunning the finest portions of 
Europe, and performing in the capacity of light cavalry, the 
most important services to their emperor. 

Sobieski was unable in the first years of his reign to 
struggle against the numerical superiority of the Turks, and 
was finally constrained in 1676, to sign a peace which left 
Podolia and the Ukraine in the possession of the Turks. 

In this year the Turks lost their principal support by the 
death of Achmet Kiuperli, who had held the seals of office 
for seventeen years. He was the most distinguished of all the 
prime ministers of the Ottoman Porte, and was the first in- 
stance ever seen in Turkey, of a son succeeding his father 
in the possession of the viziriat. 

Through the allegiance of the Cossacks, the Czar of 
Eussia enlarged the limits of the Muscovite empire to the 
Dniester. The new Vizier endeavoured to regain the 
friendship of the Cossacks, whose loss was now felt, but his 
overtures were rejected, and a great part of the force sent 
to awe them into submission, found a grave in the swamps 
of the Borysthenes. He was preparing a powerful army to 
renew the war, when more important interests attracted the 
Ottoman arms. 

Hungary, neglected in the pacification of 1669, was filled 
with plots and proscriptions, and voluntarily sought the 
Ottoman yoke. Germany, exhausted by the thirty years' 
war, lay open to their invasion. Such a combination of cir- 
cumstances rarely concurred to dazzle and arrest the cu- 
pidity and ambition of the Turks. Should Germany yield 



MUHAMMED IV. 



103 



to the invaders, Europe, from the borders of the Black sea 
to the Pillars of Hercules — all the vast regions formerly sub- 
ject to the Koman eagle, would range under the standard of 
Muhammed. 

The die was cast for war. A general panic pervaded 
every part ; the Pasha of Buda poured his forces upon 
Hungary : the fortified places were easily taken, and on all 
sides the imperial troops retired. Meanwhile Cara Mus- 
tapha, leading a prodigious army of Ottomans, had passed 
the Danube ; and the Grand Signior, confiding to his hands 
the sanjak sherif, or banner of the Prophet, himself retired 
to pursue his favourite pastime of hunting in the woods of 
Bomili. The Vizier was soon joined by Count Jekili with 
three hundred Hungarian nobles, when a grand council was 
held upon the proposition of immediately advancing to the 
walls of Vienna, the route to which lay open. The Vizier, 
impenetrable in his design, turned aside to lay siege to Ja- 
varin, while forty thousand Tartars were let loose to ravage 
and desolate the frontiers of Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia. 
The heavy ordnance followed closely in the rear of the 
troops ; and at the mere rumour of their approach, the Em- 
peror with his court, followed by sixty thousand of the in- 
habitants, hastily retired from Vienna. 

Mustapha broke up the siege of Javarin, and pressed on 
to Vienna; and in the month of July 1685, he presented 
himself, at the head of one hundred and eighty thousand 
men, before the walls of the Austrian capital. Leopold had 
happily concluded a treaty with Sobieski, and the hopes of 
Austria rested on this illustrious hero, while the eyes of all 
were intently fixed on this famous siege, which formed a 
crisis in the destiny of Europe. The Grand Vizier opened 
the batteries and pressed the siege with the utmost vigour. 
Soon the mines that had been sprung, and the incessant firing of 
the artillery, levelled whole squares of the walls, and the body 
of the fortification was laid open. Courageous as was the de- 
fence, Vienna tottered on the brink of destruction. A 
general assault could not fail to be decisive, when, to the 
amazement of Europe, the vizier strangely relaxed in his 
operations, and a few important days prepared a reverse, and 
overwhelmed the Ottoman empire in a series of disasters from 



104 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE* 



which it has never recovered its pristine lustre. Whatever 
might have been the motive of Mustapha; whether his am- 
bition was gratified by his success, or whether his avarice was 
awakened at the prospect of the treasures contained in the im- 
perial city, and was loth to leave so rich a prey to the plunder 
of his followers ; or whether by some temporary aberration of 
mind, he did not perceive the precise moment to have acted 
with sufficient energy against the city, it is nevertheless suf- 
ficiently evident that he weakened his army, and broke the 
spirits of the Janizaries by trifling and ineffectual attacks, 
and their indignation was followed by a general discourage- 
ment. Famine and disease visited the Turkish camp, and 
added to the discontent of the troops, while the besieged 
took courage, repaired their walls, and assured the present 
safety of Vienna. The mistakes of Mustapha increased 
every hour; he made no effort to retard the junction of the 
imperialists with the Polish army, led on by Sobieski ; no- 
thing could persuade his rash spirit that the Christians would 
come to seek and to combat him. Three blazing fires ap- 
peared at night on the Calembourg, which announced to the 
inhabitants that their deliverers were at hand. Sixty-five 
thousand combatants, among whom the superb Polish cavalry 
were distinguishable, led on by three sovereigns and twenty- 
three German princes, descended from the mountains like a 
torrent under the orders of the King of Poland. The scene 
which followed cannot be described ; but it most strikingly 
illustrates the points of the Turkish martial character, which, 
if led on while excited and filled with the hope of plunder, 
and under the spell of their predestination notions, is fierce 
as the instinct of the tiger, and equally dangerous ; but 
when this violent state of delirium is checked or impelled by 
disasters to exercise its fatalism upon the probability of a 
destined reverse, the discouragement at once becomes uni- 
versal and their ruin is completed. Mustapha, indeed, drew 
out his forces to meet his opponents ; but their resistance 
did not become a battle. A few discharges of cannon threw 
them into disorder. The whole army, deaf to Mustapha's 
cries and prayers, turned their backs and fled. The Vizier 
seized the sacred banner of the Prophet, and hastened his 
flight after the scattered remnants of his once powerful army. 



MUHAMMED IV. 



105 



Sobieski, amazed at his success, suspected some snare, and 
encamped on the field of battle. The next morning con- 
firmed the total rout of the Ottoman forces. The con- 
querors took possession of the camp, the spoil of which was 
immense. 

The house of Austria may date its consolidated great- 
ness from this hour. The kingdom of Hungary, entire in 
all its provinces, teeming with a noble and martial popula- 
tion, became, together with Transylvania, henceforth heredi- 
tarily annexed to its vast possessions. 

In a few weeks the Ottoman empire was stripped of the 
acquisitions which, during a century and a half, had cost 
such torrents of blood. The panic-struck troops continued 
their flight for fifty hours, without receiving nourishment, 
and they halted on the banks of the Kaab. The Grand 
Yizier, sombre, disquieted and severe, sought to turn the 
dangers of his position on his followers, by the execution of 
several of the Pashas whom he dreaded. Defeat, however, 
followed defeat, until scarcely a Turkish detachment could 
be made to stand to arms. 

Mustapha arrived at Belgrade, and was condemned to 
death. He submitted without a murmur, and he put the 
bow-string round his neck with his own hand. It is impos- 
sible not to regard but with astonishment, the contrast ex- 
hibited in the life and death of this ambitious Mussulman, 
or the singular and respectful obedience testified to the 
sanguinary mandate. Mustapha was a brave and faithful 
supporter of the Ottoman throne; his courage was unques- 
tionable; his military talents, although, perhaps, not of the 
first order, were at least respectable, and not second to any 
commander of his day. But his conduct before Yienna 
evinced not only a want of vigour, but he failed in that vigi- 
lance and foresight so essentially necessary in a commander, 
and the want of which involved in a great measure his army 
in destruction. Whether ulterior designs of a personal 
character were at the root of his faults, or whether blinded 
by some temporary hallucination of mind, at this great 
crisis, it seems impossible to determine. 

All the enemies of the Ottoman Porte now united to 
profit by her adversity. The Venetians at once declared 



106 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



war, and they soon gained signal success in Dalmatia, in 
the Ionian islands and in the Morea. In Hungary the 
Ottomans were equally unfortunate. Buda, the capital, 
passed finally under the sceptre of Austria, on the 22d Au- 
gust, 1686. after having been held by the Turks for a 
century and a quarter. A triple alliance, now formed be- 
tween the emperor, the Polish king and the Czar of Mos- 
cow, added Peter the Great to the list of the enemies, and 
menaced the Porte with severe misfortunes. A gleam of 
success, however, gilded the Ottoman arms. A victory was 
gained over Sobieski, who having invaded Moldavia, was 
compelled to pass the Pruth. 

Muhammed, submitting to necessity, solicited a peace 
with Leopold, who required as its price the payment of six 
millions of gold, the surrender of Hungary, and full satis- 
faction to his allies. Such demands were as absolute insults 
to Ottoman pride; and without making even a reply, the 
Grand Vizier opened the campaign by becoming the assail- 
ant. The imperialists passed the Drave, whom the Otto- 
mans followed ; and it was on the plains of Mohatz, the 
scene of the defeat and death of King Louis II., that the 
destinies of Hungary were again decided. The Turks were 
completely routed; they abandoned their tents, their cannon, 
their baggage, their stores — everything to ensure a safe 
retreat to the Danube ; and the Grand Vizier could scarcely 
rally his army at Belgrade. 

Thus, all the vast conquests of the Ottomans, westward 
of the Danube, were lost in the short space of four years, 
with the solitary exception of the city of Agria. The Vizier 
having commanded a division of the Spahis and Janizaries 
to carry provisions and supplies thither, they refused : he 
reiterated the order — they became more furious : first they 
demanded a gratuity, then the dismissal of the Vizier, at 
length the deposition of the Sultan. Soliman fled, and 
himself bore to his master the heavy tidings of the rebellion 
of his troops. The terrified Sultan thought to pacify the 
insurgents with the death of Soliman and other faithful 
servants, whose heads were presented, according to the 
Turkish custom, to the rebels. But the reign of the un- 
happy Muhammed was at an end. He was conducted to a 



SOLIMAN II. 



107 



solitary part of the Seraglio, where he dragged out four 
years of grief and confinement. 

The siege of Vienna forms one of the most memorable 
events in the history of Turkey ; and no event in the Otto- 
man annals struck such terror throughout Christendom. 
But even if Vienna had fallen a prey to Mustapha, he could 
in no degree have drawn after it the consequences that must 
have followed such an event, in the reigns of Mahomet II. 
or Soliman the Great. The Tartars and Janizaries, no 
doubt, would have spread terror and desolation over 
Bohemia, Moravia, and the countries which they traversed ; 
but the warlike population of Germany, the natural advan- 
tages of its mountains and passes, would have rendered an 
advance highly dangerous if not impracticable. The events, 
however, which did take place, broke for ever the spell of 
Turkish ascendency, and on the contrary taught the Otto- 
man Porte the humiliating lesson of concession and sub- 
mission. 



SOLIMAN II., 

Who preferred a life of austerity and devotion, to the cares 
of royalty, contrary to his inclination, ascended the Ottoman 
throne. He spent the greater part of his time in studying 
the Koran ; and had he not been a fanatic, he might have 
passed for a philosopher, " for," said he, " rather than the 
grandeur of this world, I prefer to search after eternal truth/' 
Such a monarch was evidently unfit to stem the tide of 
misfortune which had set in against the Ottoman empire, to 
satisfy an infuriated soldiery, or allay the discontent of the 
populace. Instead of adopting the vigorous and energetic 
measures which had so often prevailed with his predecessors 
in restoring tranquillity to the state, Soliman endeavoured 
to avert the calamities which threatened him by public 
prayers and rigorous fasts. These novel means did not 
pacify either the soldiers or the people; nor did they stop 
the advance of the enemy. The Germans took Belgrade by 
assault. The Sultan was compelled to sue for peace, but 
the demands of the allies were too humbling to be complied 



108 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



with. Another campaign was therefore resolved upon, and 
Soliman announced his intention of taking the field in per- 
son. He proceeded as far as Sophia; but alarmed by the 
new successes of the enemy, he deputed the command to 
liagib Pacha, who even surpassed his master in credulity 
and superstition. How prone soever the human mind may 
be to superstitious feeling and belief, yet no weakness with 
which a monarch or a statesman can be afflicted is more 
dangerous or contemptible. This commander allowed his 
councils to be directed by the ravings of an astrologer, who 
continually promised him victory. Such is the ascendency 
that those wretches acquire over weak and credulous minds, 
that they appear to their victims to hold the power of good 
and evil ; and they never fail but to direct either the one or 
the other, according as their cupidity or passions may prompt 
them. The army of Bagib Pasha, as might have been ex- 
pected, was routed by the Prince of Baden on the banks of 
the Morawa ; the remains of it cut to pieces on the field of 
Nissa; and the conqueror advanced to the neighbourhood 
of Sophia. The Porte was about to yield to the degrading 
conditions of the conqueror, when Mustapha, the son of the 
renowned Achmet Kiuperli, saved the honour of the Ottoman 
throne, and restored a transient lustre to the arms of 
Turkey. Mustapha was well qualified to perform the diffi- 
cult duties that devolved upon him. Firm, judicious and 
severe, he renovated the powers of the state; and the droop- 
ing courage of the army was revived by their confidence in 
his military skill. Kiuperli commenced his career of victory 
by the reduction of Nissa. Belgrade, with the strong for- 
tress of Lippa and Arsova, yielded to his valour ; and he 
returned in triumph to Adrianople to be welcomed by his 
grateful sovereign. 

The success of Kiuperli furnishes another, amongst the 
many illustrations of what the Turks are capable of achiev- 
ing, when led by a skilful general and ruled with wisdom 
and firmness. Although no people, perhaps, in the world, 
sink more rapidly under disaster than the Turks; yet there 
is no nation that equals them in that elastic power of rising 
at once, when properly directed, from defeat and disgrace, 
to victory and military greatness. 



ACHMET II. 



109 



A lingering dropsy was hastening Soliman to the grave, 
and it was expected that the infant son of Muhammed IV. 
would be called to the throne ; but Kiuperli had decided 
that Achmet, the eldest brother of his master, should suc- 
ceed him. Soliman expired in the spring of 1691, after 
a reign of three years and nine months. He was austere, 
sober, religious, and devoted to the study of the Koran, but 
he possessed none of those qualities which render a sovereign 
either useful or worthy of respect. He had the good sense 
to select Kiuperli, who thought and acted for him ; and the 
reign of Soliman was thereby far from being the least glori- 
ous of his race. 

The coinage of this prince presents the first specimen of 
the silver coins being adulterated with a large proportion 01 
zinc. It has been observed that the workmanship is admi- 
rable; and it is a matter of surprise how much the pieces of 
all descriptions resemble each other, in point of execution, 
from this down to the most modern period. 

ACHMET II. 

Conformable to the directions of Mustapha Kiuperli, the 
younger brother of Muhammed ascended the throne under 
the name of Achmet II. The same inactivity, ignorance, 
and credulity which has been remarked in Soliman, charac- 
terised this Sultan ; but the resources of the empire were in 
the hands of Kiuperli. The standard of the Prophet now 
attracted more soldiers than Kiuperli chose to retain ; and 
the army assembled under the walls of Aclrianople, became 
so numerous that the Vizier forbade the Asiatic Pashas 
from forwarding levies. Kiuperli was now the idol of the 
army, but the courtiers of Achmet were jealous of his 
power; and while the interests of the Ottoman empire 
depended on him alone, an intrigue near the throne, laid a 
snare for the life of the Vizier. The Kislar-aga, eunuchs, 
and the officers of the Seraglio, combined together to pre- 
judice the mind of the weak and credulous Achmet, and 
calumny coloured their base insinuations, by urging as a 
crime the attachment of the troops to their brave leader, 



110 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



whom they gravely accused of intending to proclaim Mus- 
tapha, son of Muhammed, as Sultan, as soon as the camp at 
Adrianople should be broken up. The weak mind of Achmet 
was incapable of discerning the falsehood of the report; 
and his stupidity sanctioned, with brutish indifference, the 
order for summoning the Grand Vizier to attend at the 
palace where the mutes were prepared to subject him to 
the bowstring, instantly as he passed the fatal door. 

It chanced for the safety of Turkey, that when Kislar-aga 
was employing all his subtilty to stimulate his master to 
direct the treacherous act, a mute named Dilrig, was in 
attendance on the Emperor, whose office it was to lift up the 
curtains of the presence chamber. This mute, during an 
earnest conference, had the curiosity to lift up the draperies 
concealing the antichamber, when he beheld the mutes of 
death; and by the quickness of his apprehension, he in- 
stantly apprehended from their gestures and lips, that they 
waited the signal to inflict the penalty of death on the 
Vizier-Azem. Whether actuated by pity, interest, or 
gratitude, is not recorded ; but the alarmed mute ran off at 
full speed to the palace of the Vizier, and succeeded in con- 
veying to him by signs, the intimation of his danger, and 
the authors of it. Scarcely had he made this important 
revelation to Kiuperli, ere the Kiaia of the Bastangi Bashi 
appeared to summon him to the Seraglio. The Grand 
Vizier calmly and collectedly ordered, in the sight of the 
officer, his horses to be prepared, and, without manifesting 
the slightest discomposure, directed the Kiaia to announce 
his speedy obedience ; but no sooner had the Seraglio officer 
left his presence, than he summoned thither the Aga of the 
Janizaries, and the commanders of their odas, all of whom 
were wholly devoted to him. A few words sufficed to ex- 
plain the peril of his situation ; and Kiuperli declared his 
determination by break of day to leave the state in its pre- 
sent danger, to remit the seal to the Emperor, and instantly 
to go on the sacred hadj, conjuring the officers to defend 
the country until death against the Giours. Such an 
address could not fail to rouse to violence a class of troops 
rarely furnished with so excusable a pretext to revolt. All 
of them swore to shed their blood in his defence ; and the 



ACHMET II. 



Ill 



instantaneous excitement which pervaded the capital assured 
the Vizier of his influence and his safety. 

Kiuperli, dignified and sagacious, limited his resentment 
to instructing the Sultan by a message that as he had 
mounted his horse, an insurrectionary movement of the 
soldiers had broke out, which detained him, and that their 
anger was directed against some abject enemies about his 
person. On the morrow, a second message announced to 
the Sultan, that the army were not to be appeased without 
the banishment of Kislar-aga, and the death of his secretary. 
The Kislar-aga, who instantly comprehended that his plot 
was discovered, hastened to escape. He besought the 
Sultan forthwith to dismiss him to Cairo, whither he retired 
instantly with his treasures, while the unfortunate secretary, 
dragged to the camp, was hung summarily with his cord of 
office ; and the Vizier, more firmly seated in his post than 
ever, broke up the camp at Adrianople, and proceeded to 
open the campaign of 1691. Kiuperli reached Belgrade at 
the head of a hundred thousand men, who under his com- 
mand believed themselves to be invincible. Prince Louis of 
Baden lay at Peterwaradin, with an army of sixty-six thou- 
sand. The Grand Yizier marching on his line, resolved to 
give battle or to drive the Prince back on Buda. It was 
midway, at Salenkemen in Esclavonia, a ruined castle on 
the banks of the Danube, near the embouchure of the Theiss, 
that the important conflict took place. The Ottomans, 
under the favour of the night, gained a march on the im- 
perialists, by crossing their line at the distance of half a 
league, and cutting them off at one blow from all their 
magazines ; they then fortified their position by cannon and 
redoubts. This skilful and rapid manoeuvre was far above 
the general tactics of the Ottomans, and the consequences 
were nearly disastrous to the imperial army. A convoy of 
two hundred and fifty chariots, despatched from Peterwaradin, 
to the old position of the army, were intercepted; and a 
reinforcement of five thousand men were descried as they 
were issuing from the forest, without any order or suspicion of 
danger; the whole corps, charged on all sides, had not even 
the power of forming, and were all killed or taken prisoners. 
The situation of the imperial army was critical in the highest 



112 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



degree. Their communications with Peterwaradin were cut 
off, and they were without magazines ; their only resource 
or means of safety lay in breaking the lines of a powerful 
army entrenched behind a deep fosse, and sustained in rear 
and left by the Danube. The valour of the Germans, and 
their confidence in their leader, inspired them with a noble 
despair: the artillery of the enemy mowed down their ranks 
as they pressed forward to the works, and night separated 
the combatants. The left wing of the imperialists was more 
successful. The Ottomans leaving the cover of their entrench- 
ments to pursue, endeavoured to take them in flank ; this 
dangerous manoeuvre laid them open to the Prince of Baden, 
who at length forced the way to the Turkish position where 
the cannon were placed. The soldiers of Kiuperli, in their 
turn began to give way ; and the Grand Vizier, indignant to 
see a victory already gained thus escape him, advanced 
at the head of his reserve, and charging the enemy at the 
head of the Janizaries, had regained the aspect of the day, 
when a musket ball struck the heroic Ottoman, and he 
expired without a sigh. Instantly the warlike music of the 
Tabul Khani, which always precedes the Vizier, and con- 
tinues to be heard amid the most furious attacks, ceased to 
beat ; its silence proved to both armies the death of Kiu- 
perli. The imperialists redoubled their efforts and multi- 
plied their attacks ; a sudden terror seized the Turkish forces, 
who abandoning their ranks, the rout became so general, 
that none thought but of flight, and twenty-five thousand 
men, amongst whom were six thousand Janizaries, were 
slain or drowned in the Danube. A hundred and fifty pieces 
of ordnance, ten thousand tents, and superior to all, the 
splendid pavilion of the Vizier, with the treasures and stores 
of the whole Ottoman army, became the prey of the victors ; 
the glory of the Prince of Baden was carried to the highest 
pitch ; and' these magnificent trophies are still exhibited in 
the palace of Carlsruhe. 

The immense loss of the imperialists precluded any further 
progress than the siege of Peterwaradin. The death of 
Kiuperli was more irreparable to the Sultan than the loss of 
an army. This illustrious Vizier blended the abilities of 
his grandfather Mehemet with the courage and generosity 



MU STAPH A II. 



113 



of Achmet his father. The soldiers admired his intrepidity, 
his warlike talent, and success ; and a death of glory crowned 
a life of honour. 

The interests of Turkey and Vienna equally needed re- 
pose, but the politics of France succeeded in perpetuating 
the war, which, however, was not attended with any impor- 
tant results. 

Amid the misfortunes of 1696, may be considered the 
rebellion of the Arab tribes. Achmet, unable to conquer, 
was glad to compound with the Great Sheik of the Desert, 
by an offer of forty thousand piastres yearly. Achmet died 
soon after the beginning of the year, which had commenced 
with this inauspicious omen. 

Cantimar describes Achmet to have been a prince of 
ordinary stature, with a great belly, produced by a dropsical 
habit rather than by corpulency; of a pale complexion, with 
large black eyes, and his nose long and straight. His char- 
acter appears in his reign ; born without talents, he never 
acquired any ; and he was the dupe of the eunuchs and the 
Ulema throughout his reign. 



MUSTAPHA II., 

The second brother of Achmet, ascended the throne. He 
was thirty-five years of age ; and although he had been kept 
shut up in the Seraglio, his character had become powerful 
and vigorous. Nature had improved all his personal graces ; 
and when on the second day after his accession he was seen 
surrounded with imperial pomp, traversing the streets of 
Adrianople, proceeding to the Mosque of Selim II., the 
Janizaries, ranked in double files, could not cease to admire 
his striking gait, the fire of his eye, the majesty and dignity 
expressed in his visage, and the grace with which he saluted 
the spectators as he passed. They hailed his announced in- 
tention of continuing the war, and of leading them to battle, 
and the Janizaries heard, even without murmurs, that the 
usual gratuity would be withheld. 6 6 My treasure is empty/ 5 
said Mustapha, " I have need of gold ; and I shall employ it 
to defend my empire and to repulse my enemies." 

H 



114 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



The first measures of Mustapha were marked by intelli- 
gence, sagacity, and perseverance ; and his discernment seems 
to have equalled his activity and energy. After having at- 
tended to the internal affairs of the empire, he passed the 
Danube at the head of fifty thousand men, and carried Lippa 
by assault. The celebrated Frederick Augustus commanded 
the imperialists, but they were much inferior in numbers to 
the Turks. The Ottoman army was victorious, but so dear 
bought was the victory, that they were unable to pursue 
the enemy, and to disguise the appearance of weakness, the 
Mufti was instructed to issue a festa, declaring that " it is 
contrary to the Koran to pursue a vanquished enemy." 

The Russians now began to demonstrate their increasing- 
power. Peter Alexiowitz already gave proof of the genius 
which distinguished him, and he began to alarm the Turks 
in an entirely new quarter. He commenced the siege of 
Azoph, but the efforts of the Tartars compelled him to retire. 

Mustapha thought to signalise himself in the campaign of 
1696, but the Elector of Saxony, anticipating his movements, 
opened the war by the siege of Temeswar. The imperial- 
ists were at first successful ; but in an attack on the Ottoman 
camp, they got entangled and bewildered amid the cordage 
and net-work of the pavilions, and were repulsed and 
driven back. The imperialists retreated with the loss of all 
their cannon. Mustapha resolved to visit his capital, and 
he entered Constantinople in triumph. 

The treaty of Ryswick which had been signed between 
Leopold and Louis XIV., released the emperor from his 
formidable enemy on the Ehine ; and the ministers of Eng-, 
land and Holland had not failed to urge the Sultan to con- 
solidate his success by a peace. Vaunting of being in a state 
to repulse all the German armies, Mustapha resolved to risk 
another campaign. 

He left Belgrade in the spring of 1697, at the head of a 
hundred and thirty thousand combatants, which soon found 
themselves before their enemies, which did not, however, 
amount to a half of their number ; but they were led by 
Prince Eugene. The Sultan seemed wavering in his designs, 
and after a variety of marches and counter-marches was 
attacked at Zenta, in a most unfavourable position, and the 



MUSTAPHA II. 



115 



army was totally routed. Thirty thousand men, the Grand 
Vizier, and fifteen Pashas of the highest rank, were lost 
in this disastrous field. The Sultan, terrified and dis- 
mayed, exchanged his robes and fled in disguise. The rem- 
nant of the army retired in confusion upon Temeswar, leav- 
ing Prince Eugene the immense riches contained in the 
Gamp, with their artillery and stores. It was two days ere 
Mustapha had sufficiently recovered from the shock of the 
dreadful battle of Zenta to exhibit himself to the mournful 
relics of his once brilliant army, This fatal conflict, Musta- 
pha perceived, would be the deathblow to the confidence 
and respect of which he had hitherto been the object : and 
with a heart suffering under grief, humiliation, and despair, 
he resolved to solicit peace. Circumstances were favourable 
for his purpose, as Leopold already beheld the germs of a 
new war in the succession of the King of Spain. After two 
months of protracted dissensions the peace of Carlowitz put 
an end to this destructive war. Leopold acquired Hungary, 
Transylvania, and Esclavonia ; Peter I. retained Azoph ; 
the Poles had Podolia, the Ukraine, and Kaminiek guaranteed 
to them ; the Venetians retained the Morea, with a strong 
frontier in Dalmatia. 

The treaty of Carlowitz was the preservation of the Otto- 
man empire, while its inconstant and ignorant subjects did 
nothing but murmur against its conditions ; nor was the 
storm laid while secretly hostile preparations were being car- 
ried on by the Czar of Muscovy, 

The Khan of the Tartars who resided on the confines of 
the empire, informed the Porte by message upon message, 
that Kussia was arming by sea and land, that her troops, 
which were strongly reinforced, were acquiring the Euro- 
pean tactics ; and that forts were erected along the line of 
the Borysthenes. Mustapha, sombre, disquieted, and dis- 
gusted with war, left Adrianople for his capital, to appease 
the rising discontent ; and to punish the criminal conceal- 
ment of the Eussian preparations, he sacrificed the Grand 
Vizier. 

A rebellion of the Janizaries, the LTlema, and the Mufti, 
terminated the reign of Mustapha. He resigned the throne 
in favour of his brother Aehmet, in August 1702. 



116 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



No prince could have been placed in more difficult cir- 
cumstances than Mustapha ; and whatever may have been 
his faults, whether he was deficient in military talents, or 
whether his ambition for military glory hurried him into 
war, when he might have concluded an honourable peace, 
he nevertheless struggled manfully to avert the dangers of 
the empire; and the Ottoman state was indebted to the 
fallen Sultan for the safety of the empire in the peace of 
Carlowitz. 



ACHMET III. 

The annals of the Ottoman house appear to represent a 
different race, as we pass from the time of Mahomet II., of 
Selim, and of Soliman, to the era of their enervated and im- 
becile successors. The scenes of disorder, indeed, arising 
from the ambitious contentions of the Ottoman princes, were 
by the great Soliman made the causes of confining them in 
the Seraglio, and consequently they were brought up in a 
state of ignorance and sensuality. A greater mistake, per- 
haps, was never committed. Solely conversing with and 
surrounded by fawning eunuchs, the Ottoman princes lived 
without action or education, until a dreary or monotonous 
confinement was terminated by a sepulchre or a throne. 
Totally unacquainted with mankind, and indeed with them- 
selves, it is surprising to find some of the successors of the 
great Ottoman princes exhibiting, at times, many qualities 
scarcely compatible with a life of solitude and sensuality. 
The puppet of the Sultan, or of the Janizaries, or of the 
crafty Ulema, generally passed from the confinement of the 
harem to the imperial seat, in such a state of ignorance, as 
not to be able to see with his own eyes, far less to act upon 
the disinterested judgment of another ; indeed, he ascended 
the throne to be directed by ambitious ministers, influenced 
according to the various incidents which are ever revolving 
in such a dangerous element as the capricious spirit of the 
soldiery, or the sordid ambition of the teachers of religion. 

Eight Sultans had successively filled the throne from the 
accession of Mustapha I., in 1622, to that of Achmet III. in 



ACHMET III. 



117 



1702, stretching over a period of eighty years, during which 
the internal condition of the state presented a scene of re- 
volt and disorder. Of these eight sovereigns, five had been 
deposed, and three of the five murdered by the soldiery. 
The Janizaries murmured against the mandates of the Sultan ; 
his views of government and discipline they invariably re- 
sisted ; and that protection which they ought to have afforded 
to the state and to their sovereign, was converted into a 
source of danger and degradation. An army thus consti- 
tuted — a military force publicly coalescing with a turbulent 
populace, and rejecting every species of improvement either 
social or political, could only effect a relaxation of legitimate 
authority, a deterioration of national prosperity, and an 
accelerated progress in the career of national misfortune and 
decay. 

Achmet III. was thirty-six years of age when he succeeded 
to the throne. He had learned at least one lesson in the 
confinement of the Seraglio ; for he was not long in exhibit- 
ing the talent of dissimulation. Elevated to the imperial 
seat by his instructors, he lavished his favours on the rebels 
— his own benefactors — w T hile he revolved how to repress 
their dangerous turbulency. The first victim was the insti- 
gator of the revolt. Seduced by the blandishments of the 
Sultan, Caracash Mehemet was persuaded to be the bearer 
of the usual imperial present to the Sheriff of Mecca, upon 
the commencement of a new reign. His route was honoured 
by every demonstration of respect ; but it ended at Aleppo, 
as he retraced his steps homeward, for there the Pasha was 
instructed to take his life. The Aga of the Janizaries, a 
few days after his elevation, was cast from his splendid cabin 
at midnight, into the w r aters of the Bosphorus. Selietar 
Assan had become the secret counsellor of the cruelties of 
Achmet ; and the Sultan bestowed on him the hand of one 
of his sisters, as a proof how fully he confided in his zeal. 
Assan soon spread throughout Asia the whole band of Jani- 
zaries who had been concerned in the revolt of 1702 ; and 
the new levies, ignorant of the fault of their predecessors, 
were unconcerned at their punishments. Fourteen thou- 
sand Janizaries dispersed over Anatolia, were thus secretly 
cut off without any public alarm : and a multitude of officers 



118 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



and Pashas experienced the same fate. Assan having ful- 
filled the views of Aehmet, was himself an object of dis- 
trust, and before a year had passed by he was sent as Pasha 
to Cairo. 

The Grand Vizier who succeeded Assan had been called 
for 9 in some measure, by the public voice ; but Calaili com- 
mitted such egregious acts of arrogance and folly, that the 
very populace were ashamed of their idol : and in three 
months, they beheld with joy his banishment to the island 
of Cos. The only recommendation to popular favour which 
he seems to have possessed, was a blind and intolerant 
hatred to the Christians. He was succeeded by Baltadgi 
Mehmet Pasha, a page of Achmet's before his election to the 
throne. Baltadgi owed his advancement to a singular 
circumstance. 

Achmet, previous to his accession to the throne, had been 
permitted a limited freedom within the walls of the Serag- 
lio ; and the prince had beheld one day a fair Circassian, 
with whom he became violently enamoured. Her name 
was Sarai, attached to the mother of the reigning Sultan 
and Achmet his brother. The Sultana Valide perceiving 
the attachment of Aehmet to Sarai, sent for her physician, 
to whom she made a merit of espousing her favourite to his 
son ; and the beautiful Circassian was, on the same evening, 
conducted to her husband's mansion. The ceremonies, 
through the menaces of Achmet, preserved Sarai, most 
scrupulously for future events. Scarcely had Achmet 
mounted the throne when his love revived, and the physi- 
cian was dragged before the Sultan, and ordered to execu- 
tion. He, however, with difficulty obtained a hearing, 
and his dangers and disgrace were succeeded by riches 
and advancement. Achmet meditated the reception of Sarai 
into the imperial palace ; but the laws of that sacred en- 
closure were jealously watched over by the Sultana Yalide, 
and even Achmet found that he dared not insist on the vio- 
lation of them. Baltadgi, the husband of Sarai, willingly 
sacrificed his rights to Sarai, in favour of his master, where- 
upon he was named grand huntsman. The Ottoman court 
exhibited, therefore, the extraordinary spectacle of the lord 
of three hundred females leaving his own palace to resort to 



ACHMET III.' 



119 



the roof of his subject, under which the master of the Otto- 
man throne was captivated by the charms, and devoted to 
the attractions, of a single woman. Sarai procured Me- 
hemet Baltadgi to be appointed Grand Yizier, and she ruled 
alike the Sultan and his minister. The crisis, however, de- 
manded other counsel than that of a woman. Of all the 
European empires, the Ottoman state alone remained in pro- 
found peace. 

A general war pervaded all the Christian communities ; 
the houses of Austria and of Bourbon contested sword in hand 
the Spanish succession ; England and Holland mixed them- 
selves in the struggle, and assailed the monarchy of France* 
Amid these conflicting elements the French courted the 
Turks to place their weight in the scale against Germany. 
Hungary was indeed open to assault. Count Tekeli, it is 
true, was dead, but his son-in-law, Eagotski, inherited his 
pretensions, and his hatred of the house of Austria, and his 
party was numerous in Transylvania. Previous disasters, 
however, had warned Achmet to avoid the dangers of a new 
war, and he beheld with pleasure his natural enemies in their 
interminable dissensions, wasting their strength against each 
other. 

An event, about this period, of great interest to the Otto- 
man court, arose from a source almost unknown to its coun- 
sellors and politicians. They may have known the illustri- 
ous Gustavus Adolphus by name, but they were, in general, 
ignorant of Sweden and of its geographical position. The 
Swedes became embroiled with Russia, and Charles the 
Twelfth commenced his wonderful career. He first deposed 
the steady enemy of the Ottoman empire, Frederick Augus- 
tus, King of Poland, stripped the crown of the Jagellons from 
his brows to place it on the head of Stanislaus Lecziusky. 
Following up his successes against Peter I. of Russia, called 
Peter the Great, the King of Sweden was seduced by the 
councils of the Hetman Mazeppa, to make an irruption into 
the Ukraine. Here he did more than is almost ever given 
to the limited powers of man to accomplish. The Swedish 
monarch appears to have been alike inaccessible to fear, 
to famine, or danger. But if he triumphed over natural 
obstacles, he had to contend with a genius as powerful as 



120 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



his own, a mind of equal grandeur of purpose, equally per- 
severing, and perhaps more wise and sagacious. Unchanged 
by disaster or discouraging circumstances, Peter drew inex- 
haustible resources from his own firmness, and at length ac- 
complished the total defeat of his powerful adversary at 
Poltava. Wounded, conquered, forced to fly, but always 
filled with confidence, hope, and pride, Charles sought pro- 
tection in the Ottoman dominions, and he fixed his residence 
at Bender, a city of Bessarabia. The Ottoman court must 
have been inclined to observe with pleasure the successes of 
Charles ; but the decisive battle of Poltava, influenced the 
Porte to the strict observance of the treaty of Carlo witz. 
Charles doubted not but that he should succeed in exciting 
a war between the Turks and Peter, which might restore to 
him his lost triumphs ; and he kept at Constantinople, both 
public and private agents who sought by every means to 
hasten a rupture. 

Baltadgi was dismissed from the viziriat to an honourable 
exile at Aleppo. Tchourluli Ali succeeded him, who declared 
to the agent of the Swedish monarch, " I will take your 
King in one hand and my scimitar in the other, and I will 
myself conduct him to Moscow, at the head of two hundred 
thousand men/' But that memorable yet ever perilous ex- 
ploit was reserved for very different times, and for a genius 
to effect it far transcending that of any modern conqueror ; 
yet the march of Napoleon upon Moscow was no less fatal 
to that mighty chief than the disasters of Poltava to the 
heroic Charles XII. This madman, Tchourluli, however, soon 
became so attached to the interests of Peter, that he would 
have given up Mazeppa to the vindictive revenge of the 
Czar, had Mazeppa not been relieved by death from the fury 
of his enemies. 

Achmet, who was ignorant of the state of foreign politics, 
was by accident presented with a paper, while on his way to 
the church of St. Sophia, which opened his eyes to the po- 
sition of Charles and the intrigues of Peter. The Yizier was 
dismissed, and he was succeeded by Kiuperli, a grandson of 
the conqueror of Candia. A secret correspondence had been 
kept up between Peter and the Montenegrins who were 
spread throughout Epirus and Thessaly ; and the mere idea 



ACHMET III. 



121 



of a union betwixt the interests of the Greek states and the 
Muscovites, already united by their national faith, was 
sufficient to alarm a less sensitive race than the Ottomans. 

An accidental circumstance contributed to inflame the 
public spirit, and to direct it against the Russian empire. 

Peter, desirous to prolong the truce, despatched an em- 
bassy to Constantinople, and his envoy was escorted by seve- 
ral ships of war. A Russian squadron thus navigating the 
Bosphorus and passing into the waters of the Propontis — 
casting anchor even before the walls of the Seraglio — pre- 
sented the appearance of a hostile fleet approaching the 
capital, from a sea hitherto considered as exclusively Otto- 
man, wounded the pride and excited the fanaticism of the 
whole Turkish population. 

The Vizier was sent for, and Achmet demanded to know 
the cause of the appearance of the Russian fleet ; and Kiu- 
perli quitted his master's presence to interrogate the Russian 
envoy. " Whence all these vessels," he asked, " if the prince 
be at peace with the Sublime Porte ? The Euxine is a sea 
without a strait, for the Bosphorus is not open to you." 
The excuse of the Russian envoy was disregarded, for the 
Turks secretly inclined to war, which was declared between 
the two empires, and the Russian ambassador, according to 
custom, was conveyed to the Seven Towers. The Khan of 
Tartary received orders to march with his predatory hordes, 
while the Vizier assembled in the plains of Adrianople two 
hundred thousand men. 

The events of 1711 on the banks of the Pruth, offer many 
points of interest which bear on the numerous campaigns 
since carried on by the Russians on the northern frontier of 
the Ottoman empire. The Turks have ever felt compara- 
tively at ease regarding the consequences of any hostile ad- 
vance on this quarter ; and they have been taught by experi- 
ence to rest the chief defence of the empire upon the line of 
the Danube, and especially upon the mountain barrier of the 
Balkan. With this viewihey have nationalized a system of 
defensive warfare, particularly calculated to exhaust, if not 
ultimately to defeat, their adversary, Peter committed pre- 
cisely a similar mistake with that of his imprudent rival, 
Charles XII., by compromising the safety of his army in 



122 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



advancing through a wasted country without magazines. 
He passed the river Pruth about the middle of July, at the 
head of one hundred thousand men, sixty thousand of 
whom were the veterans disciplined in the Swedish war, 
Peter had planned to take possession of the Turkish maga- 
zines which had been formed on the banks of the river 
Sereth, a stream flowing parallel to the Pruth on the west. 
One portion of the cavalry under General Kerns, posted 
themselves in the thick forests which separate the two rivers ; 
w T hile the remaining cavalry, commanded by General James, 
formed the advanced guard, and preceded the army about 
twelve miles. Hastily crediting a report that the Ottoman 
forces had passed the river Pruth, the Czar commanded 
James to fall back. The advance of the Turks, therefore, 
divided the forces of General Eems, as yet on the right 
bank of the Pruth ; and after many bloody skirmishes the 
Russian army, which had approximated gradually to the river, 
took up a strong position on the Pruth ; they were closely 
followed by the Ottoman army w r ho, in forty-eight hours, 
succeeded in intrenching themselves and hemming in the 
Russians on all sides, so that the enemy's camp resembled a 
besieged city. Thus deplorably situated, with a deep river 
in rear, and a watchful enemy in front, the army of the Czar 
became destitute of supplies, and were delivered over to the 
accumulated sufferings of hunger and thirst : powerful bat- 
teries erected on the right bank, swept the river and inter- 
cepted the use of its stream for the supply of the Russian 
army. There was no escape for the Czar, otherwise than 
to open a retreat sword in hand through an intrenched camp, 
defended by a numerous army, or to choose the deplorable 
alternative of submitting to his implacable enemy. Such a 
humiliating condition did not suit the indomitable will of 
Peter, and he chose the former, and prepared to make a 
general attack at break of day ; and he desired to be left 
along during the remainder of the night. Assailed at inter- 
vals by those violent paroxysms which he had suffered from 
his youth, and a prey to the deepest despondency, his soli- 
tude was, at midnight, broken in upon by a female who 
manifested in this crisis of his fate, how truly the weaker sex 
can often impart to man that strength and resolution which, 



ACHMET III. 



123 



in certain circumstances, has been denied to his stronger 
nerves and fiercer spirit. Such cheering aid flowed into the 
distracted mind of Peter while he listened to the timely 
counsels of the Empress Catherine, formerly an obscure 
peasant of Livonia. Far from deeming all to be lost, she 
urged the Czar to profit by the few hours intervening before 
the dawn, to present to the Vizier Baltadgi a project of 
pacification which should embrace every object of security 
and satisfaction to the Ottoman state. 

The preliminaries of a treaty of peace were hastily 
sketched, and Catherine carried the document to the Yizier, 
accompanied by a propitiatory present of her jewels and gold, 
together with all that could be collected among the chiefs of 
the forces. Peter impatiently waiting till the break of day 
without receiving a reply, drew up his army in readiness 
for a general attack. The troops had been put in motion 
when a messenger arrived from the Ottoman camp, consent- 
ing to a suspension of arms. The vice-chancellor of Eussia 
presented himself forthwith at the pavilion of Mehemet 
Baltadgi, and the chancellor was prepared to agree to every- 
thing but a surrender of national honour; the terms were 
instantly proposed, agreed to, and signed. Azoph was to 
return to the dominion of Turkey, the port of Taganrog- 
was to be demolished, and the frontiers of the Ottoman 
Porte enlarged and strengthened. Peter seized the first 
moment to withdraw his troops from their dangerous posi- 
tion, and to pass the river Pruth, so that his army might be 
out of the reach of danger in case of any change of senti- 
ment. Events soon proved the incalculable importance of 
'his promptitude. The last division was yet on the right 
bank, and preparing to follow, when his implacable enemy 
Charles XIL, entered the Turkish encampment, intending 
to have the opportunity of gratifying himself with witnessing 
the ruin and downfall of his enemy. Thus was exhibited on 
the banks of the Pruth, Peter the Great commanding his 
army with heartfelt exultation finding that he had escaped 
from the snare into which he had fallen, and was now 
apparently master of his own destiny. Within a few hundred 
paces, stood the undaunted and furious Swede almost un- 
able to credit his senses, that the Turks could have suffered 



124 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



their enemy to escape from inevitable destruction. The 
lofty apathy which the Ottoman Yizier displayed in the 
interview which followed, completes the characteristic por- 
traiture of these extraordinary personages which this memo- 
rable scene disclosed. Charles, too late convinced of the 
importance of himself accompanying the army at the opening 
of the campaign, and overwhelmed with the keenest anguish, 
rushed to the pavilion of the Vizier to pour forth his 
severest reproaches. " How should you have dared," said 
Charles to the Grand Yizier, " to have signed a peace with- 
out first asking my sanction, for whose interests the war 
had been begun?" The Yizier coolly replied, "that his 
sublime Emperor had ordered him to combat for the interests 
of the Ottoman empire." " Thou hadst the power of taking 
the Czar and all his army prisoners," replied the infuriated 
King, " and of leading them captives in fetters to Constanti- 
nople." " If I had taken the Czar," replied Mehemet, with 
a disdainful smile, " who then would have governed his state 
in his absence? " Charles, dumb with rage, and quite beside 
himself, stretched forth his leg from the sumptuous couch upon 
which he had flung himself, and hitching his spur into the 
splendid robes of the Yizier, deliberately tore the garment. 
The Mussulman had too much self-control to notice an insult 
which he disdained to resent, and the King, with despair in 
his heart, instantly mounted his horse, and returned to his 
residence at Bender. 

It would be erroneous from all that is known to attribute 
the pusillanimity of the Turkish commander, on this occasion, 
to dishonourable motives. It may rather be ascribed to his 
want of ability as a military chief, in allowing the decisive 
moment to pass, w T hen a general of skill and intrepidity 
would doubtless have effected the destruction of the Eussian 
army. The progressive inferiority of the Turkish armies 
as well as of their commanders, may also be observed in the 
escape of Peter from a position of such imminent peril. The 
fear, perhaps, of those reverses which had overthrown so 
many Sultans and Yiziers, may have been present to the 
remembrance of Mehemet, and the defeat on the banks 
of the Salemkenen, might well cause the Yizier to dread the 
fearful shock of such an army, urged onward by famine and 



ACIIMET III. 



125 



despair. In the better days of Ottoman greatness, while 
ruled by the Amuraths or the Selims, they would have bathed 
their scimitars in the blood of the devoted Muscovite host ; 
but now the impetuous spirit of the Turks had fled, leaving 
nothing to supply its place, save the irregular onsets of un- 
steady violence. 

The events which followed this treaty are mere matters 
of intrigue, principally connected with Charles XII. It is 
indeed melancholy to reflect on the fate of this remarkable 
man. Possessed of great natural endowments and political 
resources, he offered them up at the shrine of his indomitable 
pride. These advantages were rendered unavailing, and 
were equally pernicious to himself and to his kingdom. 
Such is the consequence of a false predominating principle, 
that Charles, instead of presiding over a great kingdom, 
and being a ruler of the destiny of nations, dragged out an 
exile's life among those whom he viewed as ignorant bar- 
barians, but who nevertheless had finesse enough to make 
him their dupe. 

The news of peace were welcomed at the capital; but 
the Sultana Yalide warmly espoused the cause of the Swedish 
monarch. Baltadgi was sent into exile, Kiaia was decapitated, 
and Brancovani, the Waiwode of Wallachia, with all his 
family, were dragged to the Seven Towers, and were eventu- 
ally all condemned to die. The Mufti, who attended them, 
pressed upon the Wallachian prince and his offspring, 
the alternative of pardon and release, as contingent on their 
abjuration of the Christian faith. Brancovani and his con- 
sort indignantly rejected the terms; and they beheld with 
unshrinking constancy three of their children beheaded be- 
fore their eyes. The fourth and youngest, sprinkled with 
his brothers' blood, and sinking under the horrors of the 
scene, exclaimed that he would accept the proffered terms, 
and the execution was therefore stayed during the time 
requisite to acquaint the Sultan with this circumstance. 
But Achmet disdaining a conversion which the fear of death 
alone had produced, rejected the plea, and the young prince 
was executed. Brancovani perished next, bewailing to his 
last breath, not his own misfortunes, but the weakness of 
his youngest son ; lastly, the strangulation of the Wallachian 



128 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

princess filled up the tragedy. This horrid scene appears to 
have wakened an unusual sympathy even among the obdu- 
rate Ottomans, already so inured to blood ; for to this hour, 
the death of Prince Brancovani and his family, is the story 
which is dwelt upon to the visitor of the Seven Towers. — 
Charles still continuing his intrigues, was informed by the 
newly appointed Vizier, who seems to have been a creature 
in the interests of Kussia, " to abstain from any farther 
intrigues, as, on the slightest discovery, he would be cast 
into the Bosphorus with a stone suspended from his neck." 

The Czar ungratefully and dishonourably retarded the per- 
formance of the articles of the treaty to which he had pledged 
his faith and owed his safety. The Vizier fell a sacrifice to 
the resentment of the Sultan. With this the hopes of the 
Swedish King revived ; and the Sultana Valide proclaimed 
aloud her admiration of his heroic valour. Peter, ashamed 
of his duplicity, or perhaps afraid to provoke a rupture with 
the Porte, seriously promised to execute the stipulations of 
the treaty ; and the presents he made to the Ottoman min- 
isters, allayed the rising storm. It now became apparent to 
the Sultan, that it was essential for the peace of the state to 
get quit of such a troublesome guest as the King of Sweden, 
but the stubborn monarch obstinately refused to leave the 
Ottoman territories. The Khan of the Tartars and the Pasha 
of Bender in vain sought to alter his implacable spirit. He 
barricaded his residence at Bender, and resisting the assault 
of six thousand Turks and Tartars, he caused the death of 
most of his faithful followers. The Turks admired his valour 
and forbore to injure him ; overpowered and alone, his sword 
fell from his grasp, and he sank into the arms of the Jani- 
zaries who pressed upon him. Conducted to Adrianople, 
and eventually to Dimotica, a strong city of Bulgaria, Charles 
now discovered that he could expect no further aid from the 
Turks, and freed the Ottoman ministers from a troublesome 
and costly guest. 

The Turks, invariably indifferent to foreign politics, ap- 
pear to have been incapable of taking advantage of favour- 
able conjunctures to regain their power. The alliance with 
Charles XII. had been neglected during his triumphant 
campaigns in Poland ; yet his person was respected and his 



ACHMET III. 



127 



cause espoused, when he was without power and a refugee. 
80 also, the Emperor of Germany being at peace with France 
and all his neighbours, Achmet assumed a warlike position 
and armed by sea and land. 

The armies of Austria were directed by the military talents 
of Eugene, and a hundred and fifty thousand Ottomans were 
commanded by a youthful and inexperienced Yizier, Cour- 
mourdgi Ali. The imperial army passed the Danube — the 
Ottoman host passed the river Saare. The Turks were 
totally routed, and the reduction of the important city of 
Temeswar was the result of this campaign. In the ensu- 
ing year the campaign was equally disastrous to the Turks. 
The whole Turkish camp and stores fell a prey to the victors. 
Belgrade, Saboz, and Selymbria surrendered, and the Grand 
Yizier with difficulty rallied thirty thousand soldiers at Nissa, 
to defend the denies which interpose between Thrace and 
the capital. Achmet sued for peace ; and the flames of 
war which were lighted up in Europe by Philip V., King of 
Spain, secured, under the circumstances, favourable terms for 
the Ottoman Porte. By the peace of Passarowitz the Turks 
ceded the fortresses of Temeswar and Belgrade, and the 
Venetians were secured in the possession of the Morea. 

It has been usual to attribute the introduction of the 
printing press at Constantinople to a later period ; but it 
was actually introduced during the reign of Achmet ; and 
the honour of triumphing over the prejudices of his country 
is due to Mehemet-effendi, the negotiator of the peace of 
Passarowitz, who was deputed upon a special embassy to 
Louis XV. of Prance. 

While such a remarkable invention was conferring a marked 
distinction on the reign of Achmet, a political revolution took 
place in Persia, which overthrew the throne of the Sophi 
race, and changed all the relations of this interesting and 
important portion of Asia. While Persia was a prey to her 
internal and foreign foes, the Turks and the Russians equally 
availed themselves of her deplorable condition. The Czar 
Peter took possession of the provinces of Shirwan, of Mazan- 
deran, of Ghilan, and the shores of the Caspian Sea. The 
Turks added the important kingdom of Georgia to their 
northern frontier, and completed an impregnable line of de- 



128 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



fences by the acquisition of Armenia, comprising the salt 
mines of Ararat, the provinces of Erivan, and of Nakshivan. 
and Khadi, with the mountainous parts of Taurus, which 
carried the dominions of Turkey as far as the lake Ouramia. 
Turkey thus easily succeeded in acquiring more splendid 
conquests in the east, than all the hardihood of Selim or 
Soliman could achieve : but however promising the com- 
mencement, it ended in national disgrace and misfortune. 
The Pasha of Bagdad meanwhile penetrated to the heart of 
the ancient Susiana, and reached the once celebrated Ecba- 
tana. The Porte concluded a treaty with Ashreff j an Afghan, 
who usurped the throne of Persia ; but the ink was scarcely 
dry, when a single man arose who reversed the fortunes of 
the East. His name was Thamas Kouli Khan, better known 
after his assumption of the diadem as Nadir Shah. Ashreff 
was chased from the throne, and met a cruel and perhaps a 
merited death ; and Nadir Shah became the powerful master 
of the Persian empire. He displayed during his sovereignty 
the most marked talents, courage, and magnanimity ; and 
his first step was to demand from the Turkish Sultan the 
restitution of those important provinces which AshrefF had 
formerly surrendered by treaty. The rejoicing of the Otto- 
mans had scarcely ceased when the new envoys of Persia 
announced the vengeance of Nadir Shah, if these acqui- 
sitions were not forthwith given up. It was at Hamadan 
that the first celebrated encounter took place, at which Nadir 
Shah manifested those military talents which place him 
among the most distinguished of Eastern commanders. The 
Turks, enveloped on all sides by his manoeuvres, were cut to 
pieces and completely defeated, and Nadir Shah, with the 
celerity which henceforth marked his movements, marched 
into the province of Ardebeil, succeeded in surprising and 
completely defeating his foe, and Taurus and all Ardebeil 
was delivered from the Ottoman yoke. 

During these conquests, Nadir committed an act of cruelty 
which eventually overturned the throne of Achmet. Nadir 
deprived three hundred captives of their ears and noses, 
and in that mutilated state sent them back to Turkey. 
In order to prevent the impression which the appearance of 
so many disfigured fugitives might make on the capital, the 



SKETCH OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. 



129 



Grand Vizier despatched orders to sink the vessel which bore 
these unfortunate victims on their voyage to the capital. A 
fatal witness of this deed of national treachery survived in 
the person of Ali Patrona, who conceived and accomplished 
the rash project of changing the whole system of the state. 
A rebellion was immediately hatched : the usual steps pro- 
duced the usual results ; by and by increased numbers pro- 
duced fresh demands ; soon the chief officers of the state 
were sacrificed, and after the rebels had glutted their revenge 
on their mutilated corpses, the insurrectionary leaders de- 
manded the deposition of the Sultan himself. Achmet, in 
this extremity, repaired to the apartment of his nephew 
Mahmoud, he conducted him to the Hazoda, and saluted him 
as Emperor. 

Thus after a reign of twenty- seven years, Achmet beheld 
himself the third Emperor who had been compelled to ab- 
dicate the supreme authority within the short space of half 
a century. 



SKETCH OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. 

The circumstances which first brought the Eussians and 
Turks into contact have been previously referred to. Since 
that event till the time of Peter the Great, nothing worthy 
of record took place between them. 

The state of Eussia, indeed, at the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century was most disastrous. Shinskii was deposed 
by the Poles, and sent to Poland, where he died in 1612: 
Moscow, without a sovereign, was pillaged and occupied by 
the Poles: the great Novogorod was seized by the Swedes; 
and the whole kingdom seemed about to be divided amongst 
its enemies. Nothing was anticipated but the final par- 
tition and total annihilation of the empire, when sudden and 
unexpectedly a liberator appeared. Kozma Minin, a butcher 
of Novogorod, roused by the highest patriotism, resolved to 
deliver his country from his enemies, or to perish in the 
attempt. He possessed the rare power of inspiring his coun- 
trymen with the same sentiments, and they willingly gave 
their lives and property in aid of the common cause. The 

I 



130 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



old contributed their benedictions : wives received the oaths 
of their husbands and children to conquer or die for their 
country: old and young divested themselves of their orna- 
ments, their pearls and precious stones; Prince Pojaraskii, 
who had formerly distinguished himself, was chosen com- 
mander of the troops, which were rapidly assembling. He 
conducted them to Moscow, vanquished the Poles, and 
liberated Kussia from the thraldom of her enemies. 

There had been many divisions in Russia among the nobies 
as to the choice of a sovereign, whether they should have a 
Polish or a Swedish prince; but the most powerful party 
were desirous of elevating to the throne, a native Russian, 
a distant relation of the ancient family of the Czars, whose 
father was metropolitan of Rostof. He was the first of the 
present family and dynasty, Romanof, whose descendants 
have raised the empire to its present state of importance and 
grandeur. His reign was prosperous; and under his sway, 
Russia acquired hitherto unknown importance in the scale 
of nations. He was succeeded by one of the most distin- 
guished princes of the present dynasty, Alexei Michailovitch, 
grandfather of Peter the Great. The adulators of Peter 
have overlooked the merits of this prince; for it cannot be 
doubted, by the imperial records of Russian history, that a 
great many of the improvements attributed to Peter origi- 
nated with his grandfather Alexei. 

The Russian empire had been steadily adding to its ter- 
ritory and increasing in importance, when Peter the Great 
ascended the throne, in 1689. It would be foreign to the 
object of this work to trace minutely the history of that 
monarch, who may, in truth, be said to have been the real 
founder of the Russian empire, not only in so far as he 
added to its territorial extent, but especially by his having 
established that system of policy, in the pursuit of which, 
Russia has rapidly risen to its present unparalleled extent 
and power. 

Peter the Great was undoubtedly a great politician, 
statesman, and general; although, perhaps, in all these ca- 
pacities he made many important blunders. He did not, as 
is generally stated, civilize his people; but he undoubtedly 
laid, or widely extended, the basis of their civilization. He 



SKETCH OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. 



131 



formed a navy ; re-organised an army ; promulgated useful 
laws; protected, and to a certain extent, purified the reli- 
gion of his country; introduced and fostered arts and 
sciences, and literature; and he ardently and successfully 
promoted the general improvement of Eussia. He founded 
Petersburg, and made it his residence and the capital 
of his empire. He extended commerce, and gave every 
encouragement to trade and manufactures. He made 
canals, repaired roads and instituted regular posts. There- 
fore as a monarch, he claims our admiration ; but as a man, 
his memory deserves the desecration of the civilized world. 
The records of eastern despotism, so fertile in crime, do not 
furnish a monarch more tyrannical and ferocious. He was 
violent, cruel, and treacherous; and sometimes was guilty 
of actions so atrocious, which, in another man, would have 
passed for the acts of a lunatic. He delighted to shed, with 
his own hand, the blood of his subjects. This tyrant, in the 
midst of his intemperate orgies, amused himself upon one 
occasion with decapitating twenty victims, brought out of 
the prison for that purpose. At every glass of wine he cut 
off the head of one of these wretched creatures, and en- 
deavoured to gain the applause of the Prussian ambassador 
for his dexterity as an executioner. This capricious tyrant 
not only delighted to witness the sufferings and torture of 
those who offended him, but even the ties of paternal 
affection had no influence on his sanguinary nature. His 
son Alexis, in order to escape from the animosity of his 
father, left Eussia without permission. The Czar got infor- 
mation that he was concealed at Naples, when he imme- 
diately despatched one of the most infamous of his ministers 
to prevail on the prince to return. By the influence of 
money and flattery he gained over the mistress who had 
accompanied the prince, and she prevailed on the unfor- 
tunate young man to comply with his father's request. 
The Czar deceived, at the same time, the Emperor of 
Germany and the King of Naples, who had made interces- 
sion on his son's behalf. Notwithstanding his solemn 
promises to pardon Alexis, he had him tried as a most 
abandoned villain, and caused him to be put to death. 
Nothing can excuse or even palliate the cruelties of this 



132 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



monarch, yet many writers have attempted to justify his 
barbarity, on the shallow plea of necessity, and expediency 
and even of justice and sound policy. 

The policy of Russia has ever been aggressive, and this 
system was successfully pursued, if not in a great measure 
originated, by Peter the Great ; and the maxims of that 
monarch have become the traditional policy of all his suc- 
cessors. Constantinople has long been, and still continues 
to be, the object of Russian ambition. After Catherine II. 
had wrested the Crimea from the Turks, she projected a 
journey to her new province, during which she proposed to 
display her magnificence and power, of which she was passion- 
ately fond. But she had great objects in view. After 
having solemnly taken the sceptre of the Crimea, and awed 
the surrounding nations into submission, she intended to 
conduct her grandson Constantine to the gates of that 
oriental empire, to which she had destined him from his 
birth. The scheme was narrowed in consequence of the 
illness of Constantine. With a view to his ultimate destiny, 
Constantine, at his birth, was put into the hands of a Greek 
nurse, and was always dressed in the fashion of the Greeks, 
and surrounded by children of that nation. Catherine, 
proceeding upon her journey, arrived at the city of Cherson, 
and when visiting several parts of that city, she read upon 
a gate on the side to the east, " By this the way leads to 
Byzantium." It was the object of her ambition to possess 
the capital of the lower empire, which during her long reign 
was never lost sight of. This ambitious design has been 
steadily followed by Russia; and all that perfidy and dis- 
simulation can do, has been done for the accomplishment 
of this great object. This policy need only to be kept 
steadily in view to lead to a correct understanding of the 
designs of all the wars of Russia against Turkey, which, 
from this period, have scarcely ever ceased. 

Almost every Russian is inspired with the conviction that 
his country is destined one day to conquer the world; and 
the rapid strides which that empire of late years has made, 
may impress the belief of its rapid realization. The fearful 
strife of 1812, the important conquests of 1813 and 1814, 
the overthrow of Napoleon and the march through Germany, 



SKETCH OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. 



133 



can hardly be denied to be sufficient to impress these semi- 
barbarians with an idea of invincibility. But the steady 
progress of Muscovite aggression will be best understood by a 
brief statement of the acquisitions of Eussia from the time of 
the accession of Peter the Great. 

When that monarch mounted the throne, little more than 
a century and a half ago, he had no seaport but the half- 
frozen one of Archangel. His first effort at ship-building 
was a yacht which Peter ordered a Dutchman named Brandt 
to construct, and it was launched on the Moscowa in 1691. 
Several small vessels were afterwards built which carried 
guns. Such was the commencement of the Kussian navy, 
which, at least to neighbouring states, has proved itself of 
late years to be both formidable and dangerous. The suc- 
cesses of Peter over the Swedes gave him the first harbour 
which Eussia possessed on the Baltic. The battle of Pultava 
and the treaty of Neustadt, added the province of Livonia, 
and the site where Cronstadt and St. Petersburgh now 
stand. The partition of 1772 brought the Eussian frontiers 
on the side of Poland, to the Dwina and Dnieper, and the 
treaty of Kainardgi, and the ukase of 1783, extended her 
sway over the Crimea, and the vast plains which stretch 
between the Euxine and the Caspian, as far as the foot of 
mount Caucasus. Acquisitions from Tartary, larger than 
the whole of Germany, spread her dominion over the bound- 
less tracts of central Asia. The treaty of Jassay, in 1792, 
brought the harbour of Odessa beneath her rule ; the in- 
famous spoliation of Poland in 1793, gave them the command 
of Lithuania; the conquests of Suwaroff in 1794, extended 
their frontier to the Yistula, and the provinces embracing 
nearly the half of the old kingdom of Poland. Even the 
disaster of Friedland added to her territory at the expense 
of her ally, Prussia. By the conferences of Tilsit she pro- 
cured the liberty of pursuing her conquests over the Swedes 
and the Turks; and the treaties of Stockholm in 1809, and 
Bucharest in 1812, gave her the whole of Finland, and ex- 
tended her southern frontier to the Pruth, thereby confer- 
ring the inestimable advantages of including the mouths of 
the Danube in her dominions. 

These important conquests were not only recognised at 



134 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 



the congress of Vienna, but the still more valuable acquisi- 
tion of the Grand-duchy of Warsaw, which brought her 
within one hundred and eighty miles of Berlin and Vienna, 
was also secured to her. Various conquests over the Cir- 
cassians and Persians between 1800 and 1814, added the 
province of Georgia to her dominions, and the Araxis became 
the southern boundary of her Asiatic territories. 

It is needless to deny that an empire of such an extent 
and resources, containing sixty-four millions of inhabitants, 
and doubling that population every half century, is in the 
highest degree formidable to the liberties of Europe. 



MAHMOUD I. 

Called to the throne by rebels, Mahmoud directed all his 
efforts to ward off any revolutionary attempts against his 
authority ; and his Kislar-aga, a wary and experienced char- 
acter, who had witnessed the revolt of 1702, and that of 
1730, which raised Mahmoud to the throne, counselled the 
Sultan to keep the real power in his own hands, often to 
re-appoint a new Grand Vizier, and never on any account 
to continue the same person in that eminent station above 
three years. Mahmoud perhaps too strictly adhered to this 
sagacious advice, and thus continually innovated on the 
former practice in that branch of the body politic, which, with- 
out being an understood law, had become in his hands a mat- 
ter of usage. — The war still continued with Persia, and the 
Ottoman forces had regained some portion of Erivan, when, 
faithful to the policy he had adopted, Mahmoud recalled 
Ali Pasha from the army; and Osman, deposed from the 
Viziriat, under a charge of favouring the Giours, was sent 
to replace him, with the title of Pasha of three tails, or 
Vizier. 

Topal Osman is represented as a man of a noble character, 
disinterested, generous, and brave. In his youth he was 
captured by a Spanish corsair when on his passage to Egypt, 
and dragged to Malta. A Marseillois, named Arniaud, 
struck with the air of Osman, purchased him from the cor- 
sair and admitted him to his home; and having had him 



MAHMOUD I. 



135 



healed of his wounds, he restored Osman to freedom and to 
his native country. Osman became successively Seraskier 
of the Morea, and Pasha of Eoumelia; and when elevated 
to the Viziriat, his first thoughts were of Arniaud, and of 
inviting him to Constantinople. Arniaud retired from the 
capital to his native place, loaded with the Vizier's bounties. 
— Bagdad was now menaced by the much dreaded Nadir 
Shah; thither Osman directed his steps with an army of 
one hundred and fifty thousand men. A furious battle 
took place under the walls of the city, and the Persians 
were totally defeated, and Nadir himself was danger ouly 
wounded. The Turks, in this instance, were guilty of an 
outrage, of which humanity had been spared the sight since 
the days of Tamerlane, by erecting a pillar, the niches of 
which they decorated with human heads. 

Nadir retired beyond the deserts which interposed be- 
tween the provinces of Persia, whither Osman was unable to 
follow him, owing to his want of provisions for the army. 
The same system of intrigue which had deprived him of the 
Yiziriat, denied him, in the hour of victory, the necessary 
support. Osman, however, found resources in his own 
character and reputation ; and the neighbouring Arab tribes, 
upon the faith of his promises, brought him supplies. He 
had scarcely collected together the half of his original force, 
when the fierce and indomitable Nadir had forced the de- 
files, and was again prepared to attack the Ottomans. They 
remained in their entrenched camp at Kerkhoud, and Nadir 
again tried his strength with Osman. The Persian chief 
was totally vanquished, and his army was pursued beyond 
Keilan, and Nadir Shah, .disheartened at his loss, made 
overtures for peace. Osman dignifiedly replied, " that his 
Sublime Master did not make treaties with usurpers." 

The honour of rendering these victories the means of in- 
creasing and strengthening the Ottoman state, was denied 
to Osman. The necessary reinforcements and supplies to 
maintain such a powerful attitude were withheld; and he 
was compelled to enter upon the campaign of 1734, with a 
weakened army and a divided force. A battle soon ensued. 
The Ottomans were overpowered and Osman was slain; 
and the remains of the Turkish forces fled beyond Taurus, 



138 



HISTOBY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



and towards Diarbekir. The important city of Bagdad 
was threatened; and the fortunes of Nadir, henceforth re- 
tained the ascendant which he had now acquired. A fresh 
army of sixty-six thousand men, led by Abdella, the brother- 
in-law of the Sultan, hastened to the vicinity of Erivan, 
and there suffered a most signal defeat. This disaster 
brought about a peace with Persia. The Porte relinquished 
Georgia, and opened the sacred territory of Mecca to the 
visits of Persian pilgrims. The general boundaries of the 
Ottoman empire resumed nearly their former outlines. 

The vacillation of the government of Mahmoud, rendered 
it extremely probable that the Ottoman Porte would be in- 
volved in the consequences of the contest for the throne of 
Poland, between Augustus the Third, the Elector of Saxony, 
and Stanislaus Lecziusky, which broke out in 1734; and 
such a contingency was not long in following. The Turks, 
by the publicity of their armaments, excited the resentment 
of the Russian Empress Anne, and they soon found them- 
selves involved single-handed with that power. The Em- 
peror of Germany, also, was making preparations to join his 
forces to those of Russia. The declaration of war by the 
court of St. Petersburg, was forthwith received at Con- 
stantinople; but Mahmoud, as had been customary, or who 
perhaps, was still anxious for peace, forbore to confine the Rus- 
sian envoys in the Seven Towers. The Russians, however, 
assumed the initiative, and opened the campaign of 1736, 
by an attack on the Crimea, for the subjugation of which, 
the famed Marshal Munich led a numerous Russian army. 

The lines of Precop, which might have proved an impreg- 
nable defence, had they been maintained with bravery and 
adequate military science, were turned by the manoeuvres 
of Munich ; and having burst into the Peninsula, he pro- 
ceeded to lay siege to Azoph, of which he soon became 
master. His next important conquest was the city of Ocza- 
kow, situated on the right bank of the Borysthenes, and near 
the mouth of that river; the explosion of its powder maga- 
zines, the effects of a chance bomb thrown into the works, pro- 
duced such consternation, that the fortress was surrendered 
almost instantly to the fortunate marshal; and the campaign 
was finished by the capture of Kibournow, the key of the 



MAHMOUD I. 



137 



river Dnieper. The year 1737 opened with the most 
gloomy appearances. The Emperor of Germany joining his 
pretensions to those of the Eussian empress, invaded at the 
same time the provinces of Servia, Bosnia, and Wallachia. 
The Sultan was desirous of peace ; but the German emperor, 
elated with his favourable prospects, demanded the cession 
of those important provinces as the price of his mediation. 
The Turks, inflamed at such unreasonable demands, passed 
at once from despondency to fury, and fiercely rejected the 
idea of such a dismemberment. 

Fortunately for the Turks, an European of extraordinary 
energy and talent had taken up his residence among them. 
The celebrated Count de Bonneval made his appearance, 
which seems to have been as opportune to the Mussulmans 
as the talents of Themistocles were to Artaxerxes ; for under 
the influence of his counsels, the Ottomans took the field 
against the Imperialists with an excess of spirit and en- 
thusiasm, which was strongly contrasted by their dislike to 
combat against the Russians in the inhospitable deserts of 
the Ukraine. The Count of Seckendorff had taken Nissa, 
and was preparing to besiege Widdin, on the Danube, when 
the Grand Vizier, pressing forward, attacked his corps with 
such decided success, that the Count was compelled to 
evacuate Servia, with a loss of a third of his army, and 
Nissa opened her gates to the victorious Ottomans. In 
Bosnia the Turkish arms were equally successful. They 
stormed the intrenched camp of the Prince of Saxe-Hild- 
burghausen, and obtaining a complete victory, dispersed 
the whole of his forces. 

The main cause of this change of fortune appears to have 
arisen from the division of the imperial forces into four de- 
tachments, combating at once on four frontier points, 
whereby the war became a contest of skirmishing for which 
the Turkish troops are admirably adapted. 

The Vizier made his triumphant entry into Constantinople, 
and deposited at the foot of his master the keys of five im- 
portant places captured in this campaign. So rigidly did 
Mahmoud follow the policy which he had adopted on ascend- 
ing the throne, that the Grand Vizier, who had performed 
such signal services to his master, had no sooner rejoined the 



138 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



army near Adrianople, than the seals were demanded by 
the Capidgi Bashi, and the Vizier was desired to make 
choice of his place of exile. 

The Pasha of Elivas was raised to the Viziriat, who forth- 
with directed the whole military force of the empire against 
Belgrade, the key of the Turkish provinces on the Danube. 
The intrenched camp of Count de Willis was carried by 
assault, who with the relics of his forces took refuge within 
the circuit of Belgrade. Master of the course of the Da- 
nube, and possessing a numerous artillery which made a 
great impression on the fortifications, the ardent Janizaries 
murmured because the signal was not given for an assault; 
but Elivas Pasha was gifted with as much prudence and 
sagacit}', as he had exhibited traits of courage. Displaying 
the whole force of his army, he invited the plenipotentiaries 
of Austria to treat for peace, under the friendly mediation 
of France; and assisted by the talents and experience of 
Mehemet Ragheb, he succeeded in dictating the law to the 
negotiators. " The bad faith of Austria," said he to the 
imperial ambassadors, " had been the sole cause of the war, 
wherein God had favoured the Mussulmans and had espoused 
the just cause." " As there is but one God," said the 
Vizier with noble firmness, " I have but one word, and that 
is Belgrade — Belgrade untouched in its fortifications, shall 
be restored to my Sublime Emperor, and for that price he 
will sign a peace." Willis and Count Nieperg finally yielded 
to the uncompromising Ottoman, and the peace of Belgrade 
was signed on the first of September 1739, which nullified 
the treaty of Passarowitz, and re-established the rivers 
Danube, Save, and Unna, for the boundaries of the two 
empires. 

The pacification with the imperial court was followed by 
another with the Empress Anne. The war had been uni- 
formly successful to her arms; but it fatigued and em- 
barrassed her politics, which looked to another direction than 
towards the marshes of the Ukraine and the Crimea ; hence, 
she restored her conquests of Choczim and Moldavia, and 
agreed to the demolition of the port of Azoph ; but she ob- 
tained an annulment of all previous national treaties an- 
terior to that of Belgrade, which, instead of being a truce, 



MAHMOUD I. 



139 



was declared to be a perpetual treaty of peace; and this 
recognition became in course of time of much importance, 
and effaced the recollections of the treaty of Pruth. The 
Sultan now also consented to recognise the Czarina's title of 
Empress; and this seemingly trivial or courteous formality, 
was, in fact, a concession of singular importance in the eyes 
of the Ottomans. Hitherto the rivalry of the Ottomans and 
the Eussians had continued in an incipient state; but in a 
short time, we find them engaged in an unequal and deadly 
rivalry ; and the progressive ambition of the one, and the 
retrogression of the other, becomes, at each successive step, 
the more apparent. 

The Ottoman Porte at this period consented to treat with 
the court of Sweden, and to commute the debts of her sove- 
reign Charles XII. for the present of a vessel of war and 
thirty thousand muskets. 

The treaty of Belgrade thus established the general peace 
which the Turkish empire so much needed ; but the Grand 
Yizier Elivas, instead of being recompensed for the pacifica- 
tion, was deprived of the seals of office, which were commit- 
ted to the Kaimakan Achmet. 

The death of the Emperor Charles XII., the last male of 
the illustrious house of Hapsburg, armed, in 1741, all the 
powers of Europe ; and the Ottoman Emperor, far from re- 
joicing at the prospect of their thus weakening each other, 
did himself the signal credit and honour of inviting the 
Christian princes to a reconciliation, and proffered to them 
his mediation. The diplomatic intercourse of the Turkish 
court had hitherto been characterised by fanaticism, pride, 
and disdain ; but the letters written in the name of the 
Sultan, at this period, to the different courts of Europe, 
breathe the finest sentiments of national honour and good 
will. A silent and inactive spectator of the war which deso- 
lated Europe, until terminated by the peace of Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, in 1748, the Sultan Mahmoud, far from availing him- 
self of its chances to annoy his neighbours, voluntarily 
allayed any uneasiness on the part of the court of Vienna, by 
converting the truce into a perpetual peace. 

A popular excitement, induced by the folly and ambition 
of some court favourites, disturbed for a time the tranquillity 



140 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



of Mahmoud ; but the severe justice of the Sultan brought 
the ringleaders to execution and repressed the subordinate 
depredators. Directing his views to the maintenance of the 
tranquillity of his capital, Mahmoud either did not regard, 
or was incapable of observing the signs of the times in the 
remote part of his empire. Age, indeed, had impaired his 
energy and augmented his suspicion ; and the privation of 
any issue disturbed his mind. Mahmoud, in short, was 
scarcely anything more than the governor of his capital ; and 
in this state of mind, he was the more apt to overlook that 
speck on the distant horizon, so soon to be converted into a 
formidable cloud of enemies, distinguished as the sect of the 
Wahabites. 

The province of Yemen originated this offset from the 
schools of the Karmatians, the genuine promulgators of the 
dogmas and austerities of those warlike fanatics, who, under 
the name of Kalifs of the Abbasside race, were the scourge 
of Islamism, and the terror of Arabia. The obscure race of 
the Wahabites, treading in the first steps of the Turks them- 
selves, commenced by obeying a spiritual guide, in the Sheik 
Muhammed, and having their Othman or leader in Ebn 
Sehaud, the Prince of Derayah and Delahsa, two districts 
situated in the desert nearly a hundred leagues from Bassora. 

Sheik Muhammed, a man of talent and address of the tribe 
of the Nejedis, undertook to become the reformer of Islam- 
ism, and to bring back the Koran to its primitive simplicity 
and purity. He took this sacred book for his basis, rejecting 
the glosses of the Sunnites, and reducing Mahomet to the 
standard of a wise man, beloved by God, and an instrument 
only, to declare the will of the Most High to mankind. Be- 
fore opening his commission, the skilful Sheik laid claim to 
the miracle of a lambent flame having appeared in the per- 
son of his grandfather, announcing the future holy vocation 
of his descendant ; and the Sheiks who interpret these visions, 
declared that tradition had fully established the claims in a 
son of Solyman, the humble shepherd of the desert. El 
Wahab, the son of Solyman, saw these prognostics verified, 
not in his own person, but in that of the Sheik Muhammed, 
of whom he w T as the father ; and these oracular seers of the 



MAHMOUD I. 



141 



desert gave the surname of Wahabites to the new sectarians, 
although the Sheik Muhammed was their actual legislator. 

The new prophet now issued forth from Yemen, and over- 
ran the cities of the Euphrates and of Syria. Rejected like 
the prophet Mahomet in his commencement — repulsed from 
Mecca and Damascus — chased from Bagdad and from Bas- 
sora, he retured, after three years of ill success, to his native 
spot. The Prince Ebn Sehaud was then the ruler of a newly 
formed state composed of various tribes, weakened by their 
wars and dissensions, but partly knit together and attached 
to his fortunes in consequence of his bravery and exploits. 
Confidence and admiration were the basis of his authority, 
and the guarantee of his subjects' fidelity. Ebn Sehaud em- 
braced the doctrine of the Sheik, and was made the leader 
of those bands who were prepared to spread their faith by 
the sword. The city of Derayah in Arabia soon became 
distinguished as the capital of the Wahabites. This com- 
munity of soldiers contained all the materials for promoting 
the ambitious views of their chief. They were abstemi- 
ous, robust, courageous, greedy of spoil, and fanatic. They 
were divided into select troops of cavaliers ; they were ac- 
customed to the severest toils, and the most violent exer- 
cises ; they were lightly armed, and accustomed, two of them 
to mount on each dromedary, whereby they could accom- 
plish long and extraordinary marches. " Would you be rich, 
powerful, and dreaded," Ebn Sehaud exclaimed to his 
Arabs, as he dismissed them over the vast deserts, thus 
armed and equipped, to surprise and plunder their foes, 
" soldiers, despise death ! 99 

Mahmoud had wholly overlooked this formidable race, 
who now began to manifest their power on the side of 
Russia. The Eussians too, were drawing tighter and closer 
the barrier between the Ottoman provinces and their own. 
They had gradually peopled, occupied, and strengthened the 
vast tract of country comprised between the rivers Dniester 
and Dnieper. These deserts were the boundary and mutual 
defence of their empires, and it had been stipulated by 
treaties that they should remain free; but the Russians 
gradually and silently established a continuous line of forts 
and redoubts, which formed a circumvallation round the 



142 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



states of the Khan of Tartary. Colonies were formed which 
attracted multitudes of Wallachians and Moldavians, influ- 
enced by a community of faith : soon villages and towns arose, 
and thus the Kussians formed establishments for any future 
war, supplied with arms and strengthened by military de- 
fences. At the remonstrances of the Sultan, the court of 
St. Petersburg merely suspended these proceedings until 
the Sultan had relapsed into his usual lethargic indifference. 

Mahmoud, indeed, drew near the end of his career; a 
fistula consumed the vitals of his constitution, and his end 
rapidly approached. He died between the two courts of 
the Seraglio, when on his way from assisting at the public 
prayers at St. Sophia. The Sultan's death took place in 
December, 1754, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. His 
death caused universal regret. 

Mahmoud was mild, affable and humane. That he did 
not want talent is apparent from the position to which he 
raised Turkey in its foreign politics, and the comparative 
tranquillity of his domestic and civil policy. He loved and 
cultivated the fine arts, and considerably softened the fierce- 
ness of the Ottoman habits and manners. His choice of a 
profession led him to work specimens of ebony and ivory as 
matters of ornament, whence a general interest was excited 
for articles of splendour and luxury hitherto unknown in the 
residences of the rich and powerful Turks. 

The doctrine of Islamism, indeed, teaches that no man 
may be above his destiny, and that every one may learn a 
vocation whereby he may earn his bread, if predestined to 
do so. A curious list is given in Maradja of the occupations 
of Patriarchs, Kalifs, and Sultans, which commences with 
the first man. Adam tilled the ground ; Noah was a car- 
penter ; Abraham a weaver ; David made coats of mail ; 
Solomon made baskets of the date tree; the Kalif Omar 
manufactured skins ; Othman sold eatables ; and Ali, the 
cousin of the prophet, hired himself to a master for a salary. 

After these examples, the Ottoman sovereigns did not 
think it beneath them to submit to this law, in imitation of 
so many eminent examples. Thus Mahomet II. sold flowers ; 
Soli man the Great made slippers ; Achmet I. made ebony 
cases and boxes; Achmet III. excelled in writing, and he 



OTHMAN III. 



143 



emblazoned the canonical books ; and Selim II. painted 
muslins. 



OTHMAN III. 

had reached the age of 53, when called from a prison to a 
throne. His demeanour and conduct throughout his short 
reign, was a striking commentary upon the miserable educa- 
tion which the Ottoman princes enjoyed among the eunuchs 
and female attendants of the Seraglio. During this reign, 
a remarkable conflagration took place at Constantinople, 
in 1756, which consumed nearly three parts of the capital, 
or about 80,000 dwellings. 

Having no sons of his own, Othman became jealous of his 
nephews, the sons of Achmet, who, he imagined, attracted 
the views and affections of his subjects, and he formed the 
design of destroying the whole race of the Ottomans. Two 
of these princes perished by poison ; Mustapha tasted the 
deadly drug, but recovered, and he and Abdul-hamid only 
escaped. 

Othman reigned three years, during which he cer- 
tainly exhibited a weak and capricious character. But 
although we may censure Othman both as a sovereign and 
a man, we must bear this testimony to his memory, that he 
appears only to have wanted proper culture to have become 
a different character. In the short duration of his reign, 
he completed the splendid mosque called the Niour Osmanie, 
or the Ottoman splendour, which ranks among the chief 
specimens of Ottoman grandeur. The rich columns which 
formed the peristile of the palace of the regal race of the 
Attali of Pergamus, became part of its interesting orna- 
ments ; still more to his glory, Othman founded a university 
or college for the maintenance of one hundred and seventy 
students. As a further testimony also of his love of letters, 
he opened in ] 755, the library which bears his name, wherein, 
among other treasures, are deposited two copies of the 
Koran, the one written by the hand of Ali, the other by 
that of Othman the founder of the Turkish empire. 



1 44 HISTOHY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

MUSTAPHA III. 

Othman had resolved to remove Mehemet Eagheb from the 
Viziriat, but owing to the death of that Sultan, Eagheb 
retained his power; and the Vizier hastened to withdraw 
Mustapha from his imprisonment, and to proclaim him 
Sultan. When he issued from his confinement, it was evi- 
dent that the poison had left visible traces of its potency on 
the features of Mustapha; and he maintained a pallid and 
way-worn look throughout his life. 

Ejadi, the Pasha of Damascus, a politic and accomplished 
chief, through the fickleness of Othman, had been removed 
from his office to the pashalik of Aleppo; but previous to 
which he had deeply ingratiated himself with the Bedouin 
Arabs. The Arabs, indignant at losing their patron, had 
collected upwards of forty thousand men, and they suc- 
ceeded in surprising, plundering, and massacring the sacred 
caravan, on its pilgrimage to Mecca. 

Great importance had been attached to the escort and 
safe passage of the pilgrims on this devout mission ; and the 
incident appeared likely to cloud, if not to overthrow, the 
bright prospects of Mustapha. But the adroit Eagheb as- 
certained that the occurrence had actually taken place under 
the rule of Othman, and was referable to the sinister event 
of his death, and not to Mustapha's accession to the throne. 
The public mind was thus appeased by this fortunate ex- 
planation, together with the sacrifice of the Kislar-aga, who 
was the hated favourite of the late Sultan. His head was 
exposed at the Seraglio gate in a silver dish with an in- 
scription, " that he was punished as a traitor against the 
faith, and for having been the cause of the sacrilege com- 
mitted by the Arabs against the sacred caravan/' In this 
certainly he had no part ; and it is one amongst the many 
instances that occur in the Ottoman annals, of the barbar- 
ous sacrifice of the innocent, to satisfy the clamour of the 
multitude, in the vain idea of adding to the stability of the 
throne. The cloud which had hung over the commence- 
ment of Mustapha's reign was thus dispelled. He was forty 
years of age when he assumed the sceptre, and had been a 
prisoner for twenty-seven years. 



MUSTAPHA III. 



145 



The Sultan, aided by his Vizier, endeavoured to intro- 
duce order into the state, and to renew its wasted energies. 
Severe sumptuary laws, enforced rigidly by Mustapha, attest 
the progress of luxury which had rapidly increased under 
the late sovereigns. A revolt, hitherto unknown among the 
Ottomans, at this period disturbed the capital. Seventy 
vessels laden with corn had been wrecked in the Black sea ; 
and as Constantinople depended upon its supplies from this 
quarter, a famine threatened to ensue. The disturbance 
was principally headed by females, who broke open the 
granaries, and continued their violence and clamours, until 
a partial distribution of the scanty supplies restored tran- 
quillity. Notwithstanding the disposition of the Sultan 
and his ministers to renew the warlike enterprises so suited 
to the genius and early impressions of the Ottoman soldiery, 
a profound peace reigned throughout the empire ; and the 
Ulema, hostile to war, declared it to be contrary to the 
Koran to disturb a peace, the conditions whereof were 
punctually fulfilled. 

Mehemet Kagheb, the most able and experienced states- 
man which Turkey had possessed since the distinguished 
Achmet Kiuperli, died in 1762, after having enjoyed for 
five years the exercise of supreme power under Mustapha. 
The character of Kagheb is inscribed among the list of pub- 
lic benefactors. His enlightened mind proposed to secure 
the capital from the future ravages of the plague, by esta- 
blishing lazarettoes on the Islands of Princes; but the 
minds of the people whom he sought to benefit, were not 
matured enough to apprehend the meaning of these sanitary 
arrangements. Distinguished by literary talents, and an 
ardent patron of learning, Kagheb founded a library, which 
he gave by his will to the public; and on the entrance is 
marked this simple inscription, " Honour and glory to God, 
and in hope of pleasing him, Mehemet, Grand Vizier, 
surnamed Kagheb, or the Studious, has founded this 
establishment, in the year of the Hejira 1176," (a.d. 1762). 
He is not only signalized by his love of letters, but Kagheb 
also cultivated literature in his own person. Among other 
works, he is the author of Collections in Morals and Philo- 
sophy in Arabic; chosen sentences and remarkable words; 

K 



146 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



also a collection of Letters and State Papers of his own 
life. Du Halde's China was being translated into Turkish 
under Ragheb's inspection, but the work was dropped at 
his death. 

All these works sufficiently indicate the cultivated mind 
of the Vizier; but he was equally great, or perhaps more 
remarkable as a politician. His finesse and expertness, and 
his great energy and firmness of character, warded off the 
dangers incidental to his dignity. He even succeeded in 
the dangerous experiment of disgracing and exiling the 
Mufti, with all his other inferior rivals. The Sultan con- 
tinued to tread in the steps of his late Yizier, and to ac- 
cumulate treasures for the realization of his ambitious pro- 
jects, when, in 1763, the birth of a son, the amiable and 
unfortunate Selim III., filled Constantinople with joy, and 
the enthusiasm of the capital was indulged in festivities for 
ten successive days. 

Little encouragement has been given in Turkey to litera- 
ture ; and the Turks are as far behind their neighbours in 
that respect, as they are in the cultivation of the sciences 
and arts. Nevertheless, M. Schulz, a German professor, 
speaking of the libraries of Constantinople, in a letter dated 
September 1826, observes, " It is difficult to say how many 
libraries there are in the vast surface of Constantinople ; 
there exists a number scarcely known to any body, w4iich 
are rich in valuable works. I have already visited thirty ." 
After enumerating a great number of works, some of them 
of enormous dimensions, he adds, " All these establishments 
are for the most part very rich." M. Schulz mentions a 
work on Damascus and Aleppo, which contains twenty-two 
thousand pages, in folio, of very small writing ! 

At this epoch, the councils of the Porte being directed 
not to conquest but to preserve, arose the first friendly ties 
with Prussia. The political state of the Crimea underwent 
a violent change, from the invasion of Krim Guary, a de- 
posed khan. He overturned the authority of Alim Guary, 
who was old, timid, and imbecile ; and the fiery Tartar 
seized the throne, and collecting together a vast body of 
Tartars, he deluged Moldavia, in which he reaped an im- 
mense booty. The Porte, who has invariably exhibited 



MUSTAPHA III. 



147 



great facility and skill in managing those who are powerful 
enough to take care of themselves, sanctioned the usurpa- 
tion of Guary. This chief being desirous of power only, 
disdained the spoil which had been seized by his troops, 
and ransomed and restored the captive Moldavians and 
their herds. 

Many circumstances conspired to retain Mustapha in his 
pacific views. Not even the death of Augustus III., King 
of Poland, and the menacing arrangement whereby the 
Empress Catherine II. succeeded in placing the crown of 
the Jagellons on the brows of her favourite Poniatowski, 
could effect a change in the Ottoman policy. The Jani- 
zaries were become un warlike and idle ; the Spahis sunk in 
luxury, and all classes of the military regardful only of the 
preservation of their timariots. Egypt was disturbed, and 
the Wahabites menaced Mecca. The violence, however, of 
one man lighted up a war, which not all the wrongs of 
Poland, and the politics of Turkey could effect ; and these 
two formidable countries entered on the terrible conflict of 
1768, which lasted six years. 

Balta, a city of Crim Tartary, is separated by a rivulet 
from the Ukraine. It is noted for the rich pasturage which 
nourishes the numerous herds and flocks of the Nogay Tar- 
tars. Jacoub Aga, formerly the governor of Balta, owed 
his elevation to the Khan Krim Guary, who had been re- 
moved in consequence of the dread excited by his restless 
ambition. Jacoub languished in prison, in daily expecta- 
tion of death ; but at length he was set at liberty, and per- 
mitted to retire to Balta ; previous to which, however, he 
had been stripped of his wealth. Pull of ambition, and 
anxious to recall Krim Guary to his former station, he skil- 
fully caught at an event w^hich facilitated his plans. The 
discomfited Poles had retired on all sides before the vast 
superiority of the Kussian forces, and a small detachment 
took refuge in the pashalik of Choczim, in the vicinity of 
J acoub Aga. The intrigues of this artful man soon brought 
on a skirmish betwixt this little band of Poles and the Kus- 
sians who had followed them. Driven back on Balta, the 
Poles were followed thither by their foes, and the Turks 
joined in the action which ensued. Many of them w T ere 



148 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



massacred by the Eussians, and the towns and villages were 
consumed by fire. The details of these events being con- 
veyed to Constantinople, threw the whole capital into an 
excess of rage ; all parties were eager for war. Krim 
Guary, replaced in his former rank, was made generalissimo 
of the Ottoman armies, the Sanjak Sheriff was displayed 
w T ith all imaginable pomp, and the war began. 

All ranks of Mussulmans were invited to rally under the 
sacred standard ; and all Asia crowded to the field. De- 
vastation and waste tracked their course to the Danube, 
and Krim Guary, issuing from his peninsular steppes, with 
a hundred thousand of his Tartar subjects, and an immense 
host of Ottomans, opened the campaign, by crossing the In- 
gul and the Bog ; he soon inundated New Servia, and this 
province became the prey of his troops. The towns were 
destroyed; the wretched inhabitants were swept off into 
captivity ; and with the exception of a few strong forts, the 
whole district returned to its original solitude and desolation. 

Leading back his forces to Bender, the indefatigable Khan 
terminated the campaign : the Pasha had prepared a bridge 
of boats across the Danube, but had omitted to break the 
ice so as to fasten the chains to the bank. Guary, im- 
patient of delay, exclaimed, " See how the Tartars are ac- 
customed to pass rivers ! " then dashed on horseback into 
the stream, and notwithstanding the crackling ice, suc- 
ceeded in struggling safely to the opposite shore. This rash 
and warlike boldness was highly calculated to excite the 
superstitious Ottomans. The Vizier, however, a man of in- 
ferior talents, was jealous of his ascendency, and Mehemet 
Emir EfFendi was constrained to yield in silence ; but he was 
not therefore the less dangerous. The Krim Guary died of 
poison, just as he was preparing to break into Poland. 

Catherine II. had relied on her address to parry the war, 
but she was taken by surprise. The campaign of 1769 was 
opened by the Ottomans with a vast undisciplined force of 
more than two hundred thousand men. So perfectly had 
the Russians understood the inferiority of the undisciplined 
bravery of the Turkish hordes, when not directed by a 
masterly mind, that Prince Galitzin calmly opposed them 
with only twenty-four thousand men. The Russians, how- 



MUSTAPIIA III. 



149 



ever, were repulsed from before the fortress of Choczim, 
which they had nearly acquired by the treachery of Ali 
Pasha, its commander. The plot being discovered, a rein- 
forcement was introduced, and the Russians experienced a 
severe check. The Vizier, intoxicated with this unexpected 
piece of good fortune, advanced to the Polish frontiers, with- 
out provisions or necessary magazines ; his vast forces were 
therefore occupied in plundering indiscriminately friends and 
foes. Necessitated to separate the army into three divisions, 
the corps of the Seraskier followed the route to Jassy ; and 
encountering the Russians, they were completely overthrown, 
The Ottomans took to flight, and communicating the panic 
to those in the rear, under the Grand Yizier, they fled 
without having seen an enemy ; and the whole army dis- 
persing into Bessarabia and Moldavia, the victorious Galit- 
zin invested Choczim. The Vizier at length rallied a corps 
which greatly outnumbered the Russians, with which he 
compelled Galitzin to raise the siege. 

Mehemet Emir seems neither to have possessed the vigour 
of youth, nor the prudence of age ; he was headstrong and 
presumptuous ; and like many of his predecessors, relied im- 
plicitly on the guidance of astrologers. The plan of the 
campaign, however, had been arranged in the recesses of 
the Seraglio, and the Vizier was continually receiving orders 
from the Sultan which he could not execute, for which he 
was destined to answer with his head. Accordingly the 
head of Mehemet Effendi was in due course exposed at the 
Seraglio gate, with this inscription, " For not having followed 
the plan of the campaign regulated by the Sultan himself." 

The successor of Mehemet was Moldovandgi, whose mili- 
tary talents had elevated him to the Viziriat. He proposed 
to efface at one blow the disasters of his predecessors, and 
he prepared to pass the river Dniester even in sight of Ga- 
litzin. Part of the Ottoman army had crossed the river ; 
but at this critical moment, the torrents pouring down from 
the Krapuck mountains swelled the Dniester, and their 
bridges being carried away, the communications of the Otto- 
mans were cut off. A panic seized the whole army. Pressed 
by the Russian forces, they threw themselves into the im- 
petuous stream, and realised, by their ungovernable terror, 



150 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



the fate which they dreaded. Despising all authority, and 
deaf to the Vizier's voice, men, horses, cannon, all were lost. 
Even the garrison of Choczim, which the swelling of the 
Dniester would have rendered unassailable, partook of the 
general cowardice, and left the gates of the fortress wide 
open, a prey to the Russians. Such were the events of the 
campaign of 1769. Catherine recalled Galitzin, to whom 
the success of her forces may be attributed, and placed Mar- 
shal RomanzofF in the command. 

The Russian court now prepared to excite a more serious 
danger in the heart of the Ottoman empire ; and presuming 
that a community of faith must awaken a community of 
feeling, it was secretly arranged to bring forward the Greeks, 
and to arm on the north and on the south, the Christian 
population of the Turkish provinces against their master. 

OrlofF, the favourite of Catherine, who had formerly 
served in the ranks of the Russian artillery corps, with 
Papaz Oglu, an obscure Greek, undertook, by the aid of that 
adventurer, to revive the spirit of freedom in the descend- 
ants of the Spartans and Athenians. 

The population of the Morea in 1770, ranked about one 
hundred thousand Greek males, capable of bearing arms, 
while the Ottomans, reposing on their undisturbed possession, 
kept only about five thousand military in the various for- 
tresses. Their treatment of Greece may be deemed haughty, 
but it was far from being oppressive ; and the eager desire 
of the Mainotes and other inhabitants of the Morea, to chase 
away the Venetians, and to submit to their former masters, 
proves that they deemed the Ottoman yoke the easier of the 
two. 

Papaz Oglu, proceeding on his mission, visited the Morea, 
and intriguing with Banakhi, the Primate of Calamata, 
esteemed by the people for his experience and opulence, he 
readily entered into the views of Oglu. A general rising 
in the Morea was arranged to take place, upon the appear- 
ance of a Russian force. Oglu had the audacity to report 
to St. Petersburg, that one hundred thousand Greeks were 
ready to aid the Russian arms. 

The sagacity of Catherine does not appear very conspicu- 
ous in this transaction. Relying on the report of Oglu, she 



MUSTAPHA III. 



151 



ordered a Russian fleet to sail from the Baltic to the Egean 
Sea, and the Cyclades, the navigation of which was as un- 
known to the commander as the Euxine had been to the 
first Argonauts. It was in the summer of 1770, that seven 
Russian sail of the line, four frigates and a few transports, 
having on board about twelve hundred troops, cast anchor 
in the harbour of Cor on. The Ottomans, startled and alarmed 
at the unexpected occurrence, far from thinking of defence, 
fled on every side to the fortresses ; but the Russians were 
altogether unable to avail themselves of the panic which 
their appearance had created. The Greeks and the Russians 
had, however, mutually deceived each other. The Russians 
had conceived that on their mere appearance, the whole 
male population would take up arms; the Greeks had sup- 
posed that their services would be merely requisite as guides 
for an army equipped at all points. A few thousand men 
were collected together, under the pompous title of the 
Eastern and Western Legion of Sparta; and in the vain 
hope of extending the insurrection, they undertook to be- 
siege Coron. The Turkish ministry had been advised of a 
maritime attack being in preparation by Russia ; and when 
they heard that the Russian squadron had sailed, they per- 
sisted to the last, in preparing against an attack from the 
Black Sea. But as soon as they had accounts of the real 
fact, a motley armament, equipped in haste, was despatched 
under the command of the Capitan Pasha. The Russian 
force had quitted Coron, and taken possession of Navarino. 
The Turkish squadron, on the approach of the Russians, took 
to flight; one vessel only sustained the engagement, and re- 
turned the fire of the foe. Opposed to the whole squa- 
dron, the brave Turk succeeded in making a safe retreat 
under the cannon of Napoli. A single individual thus 
had retrieved the Ottoman character, who showed on this 
occasion traits worthy of Barbarossa ; and that man became 
afterwards the support of the empire, under the title of 
Hassan Bey. 

The struggle which the Ottoman empire sustained against 
the gigantic efforts of Catherine, is among the most impor- 
tant portions of its history. It clearly illustrates the genius 
and character of the Turks; and points out as forcibly the 



152 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



increasing ambition of Eussia to accomplish the destruction 
of Turkey, and to annex its valuable provinces to the Mus- 
covite empire. 

The distinguished character who, at this critical period, 
sustained the glory of the Ottoman name, was Hassan-bey. 
Born in Persia, and taken into captivity in his infancy by 
the Ottomans, he was sold to an inhabitant of Eodosto, a 
city of Propontis; here he signalized his hardihood and 
courage, and escaping in a Greek vessel, he enrolled himself 
among the mercenaries of Algiers. He quickly rose to 
power among those fierce and lawless pirates ; and having 
excited the anger of the Eegency, he sought refuge at 
Naples. Under the protection of Count Ludolf, ambassador 
from the King of the two Sicilies to the Sublime Porte, he 
became known to Eagheb Pasha, and was by him appointed 
to a command in the Ottoman marine, in 1764. He thus 
arrived at the post of Capitan of the flag of the Capitan 
Pasha. Hassan reunited the Ottoman fleet, and his daring 
spirit burned to pursue the Eussian squadron, a step which 
his commander shrunk from adopting. 

The Eussian enterprise had entirely failed in its views of 
emancipating Greece; in the Morea, they possessed only 
Navarino and Mistra, when the Albanians, whom the Otto- 
mans called to their aid, burst into the Peninsula to lay it 
waste with fire and sword. The city of Patras and every 
place which resisted, were laid in ashes ; and the Eussians, 
few in number, dispirited, and pressed on all sides, hastened 
to re-embark. The Greek chiefs of the insurrection also 
crowded to the vessels; and thus the whole Peninsula, and 
its abandoned and defenceless inhabitants, became a prey 
alike to Albanian pillage and Ottoman revenge. 

The Capitan Pasha perceiving that a combat was inevi- 
table, chose a skilful position, in the narrow strait separating 
the island of Chio from the Asiatic coast. He moored his 
fleet in such a position that they were guarded by batteries 
on shore, and flanked by shoals and rocks; and here he 
awaited the foe. It will at once be perceived that the posi- 
tion of the Turkish fleet verv much resembled that of the 
French at Aboukir ; and the results were not widely different 
from the victory of the Nile. The combat began with 



MUST API! A III. 



153 



great fury ; and it is remarkable that the Capitan Pasha, at 
the very moment of the commencement of the battle, caused 
himself to be put on shore, on the pretext of establishing 
some batteries on the coast, at the same time that the 
generalissimo, Orloffi quitted his vessel to embark on board 
a frigate, which kept aloof during the whole action. The 
Capitan Pasha, however, was not needed when Hassan com- 
manded. His vessel was attacked by the Eussian Admiral's 
flag-ship, and a chance shot having carried away the rudder 
of the Russian ship, she drove down on the Capitan Pasha 
to board, and. the contest became furious and bloody. Their 
decks were swept by musketry; and the hostile vessels were 
alternately taken and re-taken. Hassan, covered with 
wounds, was on the very point of capturing his enemy, 
when the Russian commander succeeded in setting the 
Turkish vessel on fire. The flames burst forth furiously and 
caught the Russian ship, the crew of which, to escape 
plunged into the sea. Hassan, after using every endeavour 
to extinguish the conflagration, adopted the same expedient, 
and accompanied by Achmet, an old companion and friend, 
he succeeded in gaining the shore. No sooner had the 
crews quitted the • vessels, than the powder magazines ex- 
ploded, and both of them were blown into the air. This 
terrible explosion terminated the contest for the present. 
Jaffer-bey, commander of a division, alarmed at the event, 
made signal to cut the cables and clear the enemy by keep- 
ing along the coast. While thus sailing along, he perceived 
in front of the port of Chio, the little bay of Tchesme, and 
heedful of nothing but present safety, he hastened to anchor 
under the guns of the fortress. The whole fleet followed, 
and crowded together into the same asylum. Hassan, 
wounded and scorched by the flames, made his way on foot 
to Tchesme, to exhort the imprudent Ottomans instantly to 
leave so dangerous a position. The Capitan Pasha, how- 
ever, had decided to avoid another engagement, and ob- 
stinately refused to listen to the remonstrances and en- 
treaties of Hassan. He forbade any ship to put to sea; 
the batteries on the shore were increased; and his position 
appeared impregnable, but it was not so. The Russians 
perceived his infatuation, with as much astonishment as joy, 



154 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



and they hastened to take advantage of it. While a few 
ships, by a feigned attack, occupied the attention of the 
Turkish fleet, two fire-ships, conducted by English officers 
who served under Elphingstone the Russian Commander, 
were conducted into the midst of the bay ; the crews having 
lighted the train, hastily retired to the larger vessels, and no 
sooner were they on board than the Eussian ships withdrew 
from the scene of danger. They had scarcely time to leave 
the bay, when the flames burst forth and set on fire four 
large Turkish vessels. These becoming ungovernable, 
drifted down upon the fleet: all the ships became mixed 
together — each caught fire successively, and the whole 
port of Tchesme became an ocean of flame. The can- 
non which were shotted, exploded as the flames reached 
them, and battered down the fortresses and buildings. 
At last, as the fire reached the powder magazines, ship after 
ship exploded, and was blown in fragments into the air ; the 
whole heavens blazed with fiery projectiles — ropes, spars, 
and canvass, and torn fragments of the Turkish armament. 
The darkness of the night added to the grandeur and sub- 
limity of the scene. The conflagration began about an hour 
after midnight, and lasted until six in the morning ; and 
thus on the night of the 7th July 1770, the whole Otto- 
man fleet, composed of twenty- four vessels, several of which 
carried a hundred guns, was destroyed. Only one vessel 
of sixty guns escaped, but it was shortly after captured by 
the Russians. 

The advice of Elphingstone was for an immediate advance 
through the Dardanelles to the walls of the Seraglio. Had 
this bold advice been followed, circumstances warrant the 
supposition that it might have been successful ; but the con- 
ception was beyond the ideas of OrlofF. Triumphant as was 
the success of the Russians, the results were trifling. Mean- 
time, however, Constantinople was thrown into the greatest 
alarm. The fortresses of the Dardanelles being nearly useless 
and almost dismantled, Mustapha confided to the celebrated 
Baron de Tott to improve and strengthen these important 
defences. This French officer had repaired to Constanti- 
nople after the death of the Tartar Khan Krim Guary, and 
had carried with success the improvements of Europe into 



MUSTAPHA III. 



155 



the Turkish founderies and schools of instruction for the 
artillery. The Baron, reaching the capital, the important 
defences of which were intrusted to his care, sought for the 
Reis-effendi ; and we may estimate, by an anecdote given 
by the Baron in his amusing although prejudiced work upon 
Turkey, what were the chief engagements of the Turkish 
minister at this critical period. The Baron found the mind 
of Ismail-bey entirely engrossed by the important engage- 
ment, of procuring two canary birds to sing the same air in 
concert. 

The Russians, however, did not make any attempt for 
forcing the passage, when the Dardanelles lay defenceless and 
unguarded ; and the Baron soon succeeded in arranging 
those batteries, which, in after times, proved how formidably 
they can act against the most courageous assailant. 

In Moldavia the campaign had been equally unfavourable 
for the Turks. The Russians under RomanzofF attacked the 
Ottomans on the Pruth, and in a great battle, which took 
place nearly on the same ground formerly occupied by 
Peter the Great, the Turks were totally routed. Their 
camp, cannon, and seven thousand waggons with provisions 
and military stores, attested the victory of Cohoul, and 
erased the disgrace of the Pruth. The Grand Yizier re- 
passed the Danube, with scarcely five thousand men follow- 
ing the standard of the Prophet. The discomfited troops 
reached the capital at the very moment that the catastrophe 
of Tchesme had plunged the country in mourning. The 
victory of Cahoul cost the Ottoman Porte the strong fortress 
of Bender, which had resisted until the conquerors had 
taken possession solely of a heap of ruins. The mere alarm 
of the fall of Bender struck the Turkish forces with one of 
those panics so remarkably prevalent with their armies, and 
now becoming much more common and disastrous. These 
sudden and almost unaccountable panics are utterly ruinous to 
the military character of the Turks. In victory they are irre- 
sistible, but in defeat or disaster they are impotent. With- 
out the slightest cause, except their own alarmed fears, the 
troops evacuated the positions they occupied on the left 
bank of the Danube; and the Russians who had always 



156 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 



hitherto been repulsed before Ismail with loss, now found 
this important fortress unguarded. 

It required all the courage and firmness of Mustapha to 
contemplate steadily the dangers which surrounded his 
throne. The Ottoman empire threatened a speedy dissolu- 
tion. Enemies surrounded her on all sides ; and the army, 
undisciplined and disorganised, appeared to be no longer 
capable of successful resistance. 

Catherine II., as politic as she was ambitious, sapped on 
all sides the basis of Turkish power; and the terror of the 
Russian name embraced the Danube and the Archipelago. 
The Tartar chiefs were disunited through the influence of 
Russian intrigue, and paved the way for the conquest of the 
Crimea, A Russian army issuing from Georgia marched on 
the Pashalik of Trebisond ; where no foreign enemy had ap- 
peared since the days of Timour. Azoph was seized by the 
Russians, and their fleet ravaged the Euxine, and precluded 
the entrance of supplies for the capital by the Bosphorus : 
their naval forces took possession of Lemnos and shut up 
Constantinople on the south. Palestine had revolted from the 
Turkish rule, and Sheik Dahar lifted the standard of rebel- 
lion amid the mountains of Lebanon. In Egypt, the cele- 
brated Ali-bey had chased the Pasha from Cairo, and aspired 
to acquire the power and rank of the Mameluke Soldans. 
Such were the perils which surrounded the throne of Mus- 
tapha; but though thus pressed on every side, the Ottoman 
empire constantly renewed its efforts, and exhibited that 
elastic energy which has ever characterised it. The Turks 
now offered a defensive although spirited resistance. 
JSl|The real defence of the Turkish empire has been found 
by experience to be neither in the swamps of Moldavia, nor 
in the more important line of the Danube. The Grand 
Vizier, impressed with this idea, relinquished the princi- 
palities, and fortified the strong camp of Shumla, and main- 
tained throughout the year a successful campaign amid the 
recesses of the Balkan. 

The European sovereigns could not look with indifference 
on a contest that threatened one of the principal empires 
with destruction, and the aggrandisement of another which 
had already sufficiently indicated its power and the ambitious 



MUSTAPHA III, 



157 



spirit of eonquest which animated its councils. An attempt 
therefore was made in 1772 to effect a peace between the 
belligerent powers with the concurrence of Austria and 
France. The pretensions of Russia, however, which required 
the free navigation of the Bosphorus, as well as the cession 
of the Crimea and the vast space between the Bog and the 
Dniester, were rejected by the Porte, and the indecisive 
campaign of 1773 followed. 

The Vizier resolved to act entirely on the defensive — to 
maintain his position, and to watch the movements of the 
enemy. The Russians attempted to seize Silistria and to 
surprise Yarna, but they were repulsed in both enterprises 
with serious loss. The public mind had become so sensitive 
■ — a clear indication of national weakness — that the very 
news merely of the approach of the enemy to Yarna, spread 
a fright and alarm throughout Constantinople. Mustapha, 
regardless of a bodily disorder to which he was a prey, re- 
solved in person to combat the enemy. The brave and 
enterprising Hassan, weary of the inaction of the maritime 
war, joined the land forces, and commanding a corps of cavalry, 
he so harassed the Russian army, that he drove them across 
the Danube, with the loss of their stores and cannon. We 
thus perceive, at every step in Turkish history, that, more 
than in any other European nation, the success of their 
arms depends entirely on the talent and energy of the com- 
mander, and the devoted confidence with which the troops 
repose in a daring and energetic leader. 

At the moment of this return of prosperity, Mustapha 
closed his days. He had sustained with composure and 
dignity every reverse of his arms, and the long train of 
calamities which had broken in upon his empire ; but his 
health gradually sunk under the constant disquietude of his 
mind. In his last moments he sent for Abdul Hamid, the 
last of the sons of Achmet III. ; he confided to the young 
prince the projects which he had planned for the prosperity 
of his empire, and recommended him to continue the war, 
until he could conclude an honourable peace. 

Mustapha evinced a firm and powerful mind, capable of 
entertaining the most useful and enlightened projects. His 
early education was wholly neglected, yet his views were 



158 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



far beyond his ministers and his subjects in general. Su- 
perior to the prejudices of his people, he had commanded 
his son Selim to be inoculated, from which he was restrained 
solely by the remonstrances of his mother ; for although we 
owe this inestimable discovery to the Ottomans, from whom 
it was transmitted to Europe through the talent and sagacity 
of Lady Wortley Montague, yet the fatalism of the East has 
obstructed its general application. 

Mustapha founded at Constantinople, in 1764, the academy 
which bears his name. He repaired the magnificent mosque 
and library of Muhammed II., which had 'been injured by 
earthquakes ; and having acquired the title of Gazi, or 
victorious, he erected at Constantinople the Mosque of Nour 
Mustapha. He died in the year 1774. 



ABDUL HAM ID. 

Amid many dangers and reverses this Sultan ascended 
the Ottoman throne, on the 21st January, 1774. He had 
reached the age of fifty, — forty-four years of which he had 
spent in the confinement of the Seraglio; and during that 
seclusion he had occupied himself in copying the Koran and 
making bows and arrows. It may easily be supposed, that 
the splendours of a throne would dazzle the mind of one 
who had so long been confined to the obscurity of a prison ; 
yet we find Abdul Hamid lending himself to encourage and 
support the military establishments and improvements of 
his uncle Mustapha; and in the spring of 1774, he was 
prepared with an immense mass of forces to defend his em- 
pire in the impending conflict. The Kussians now encir- 
cled the Ottoman empire on the north and the east: from 
the Caucasus to the Danube, they pressed upon every point. 
Heraclius, who had received the principality of Georgia 
successively from Nadir Shah and the Ottoman Sultans, 
was flattered by the offer of an alliance with Catherine, and 
he hastened to rank himself as a vassal of the Kussian 
throne. The Ottoman Porte still retained the important 
fortresses along the line of the Danube, commencing on 
the west at Belgrade, and terminating, near the mouths 



ABDUL HAMID. 



159 



of that important river, with Ismail, Kali, and Akerman; 
but these strongholds, of how much importance soever, did 
not tranquillize the Porte, who saw the empire laid open to 
invasion from the east. The Pasha of Scutari in the Ad- 
riatic sea, occupying the territory of Scandenberg, set at 
defiance the Capidgis, the firmans, and the enmity of the 
Porte. Ali Pasha, his successor, laid in Macedonia the 
foundations of an independency which he maintained for 
a quarter of a century. Asia Minor, and every part, 
indeed, of the Ottoman empire, exhibited the same 
picture of violence and disunion. Achmet ruled in Bag- 
dad with almost absolute power, and Daher, the Sheik of 
Lebanon, held the pashalik of Acre, in defiance of the 
Porte. 

The Kussian empire, at this period was convulsed by the 
revolt of Pugatchiff; but it served only to evince the firm- 
ness and energy of the Empress. The army of Romanzoff 
being reinforced, he passed the Danube and proceeded to 
invest Silistria. The Turks, on this occasion, exhibited 
their wonted and fatal impatience; and with that unsteady 
valour which now characterized their onsets, they rushed 
forward to the attack, without having entrenched them- 
selves, or used the necessary precautions for the safety of 
the army in case of the failure of the attack. The fanatical 
fury of the Ottomans sank before the steady discipline of 
their foe. Twenty thousand men, escorting a convoy of 
five thousand chariots, was attacked by Suwaroff and Kamin- 
ski, and entirely routed. The lines of the Grand Yizier at 
Shumla, although they contained a numerous army, lay open 
to attack ; and Komanzoff", with as much audacity as success, 
broke in by one of the openings, turned the Vizier's posi- 
tion, and stationed himself so as to cut off all communication 
between the Turkish army and its magazines, which were 
stationed at Varna. This ra'sh but successful movement 
was attended with that success which had hitherto accom- 
panied the Russian arms. The Turks, stupified and alarmed, 
and deaf alike to the orders and entreaties of their com- 
mander, were seized with such terror, that they mutually 
slaughtered each other. They fled promiscuously, and out 
of the vast host which had been concentrated within the 



160 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



fortified camp of Shumla, scarcely twelve thousand men 
rallied around the standard of the Prophet. In this ex- 
tremity the Vizier hastened to apprise his sublime master 
of the disastrous battle of Shumla. Fortunately for the 
Vizier, he had espoused an aunt of the Sultan; and the 
Mufti, to reconcile the event with the honour of the throne, 
declared by his festa, that " the Grand Vizier could not 
conquer without the aid of soldiers; and as his army 
had abandoned him, the Holy Prophet ordained that he 
should make peace." It would certainly have been unjust 
on this occasion, that the Vizier should have been required 
to answer with his head, for the defection of the soldiers. 
This practice, how inconsistent soever with justice and reason, 
had been of long standing ; and w T e can only attribute the 
Vizier's escape to the easy facilities of a religion that can 
be directed for the accomplishment of either good or 
evil, by an unjust or selfish monarch, the clamours of the 
populace, or the designs of an intriguing priesthood. 

The Russian general finding the Turkish camp fortified 
on all sides, was preparing his plans for an assault, when the 
Kiaia of Moussou Pasha appeared to demand a peace. The 
preliminaries were hastily arranged ; and in the Russian 
camp of Kainardghi, about four leagues from Silistria, the 
treaty was signed on the drum-head, on the 21st July, 1774. 

By this treaty Russia retained only the tract between the 
Bog and the Dniester, known by the name of New Servia ; 
the forts of Yenikali and Kertesh, in the Crimea ; and the 
fortress of Kilburn, at the embouchure of the Dnieper opposite 
to the town of Oczako w. Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and 
the Grecian Isles, were restored to the Porte. The most im- 
portant feature of the treaty was the free admission of Russian 
merchant vessels to the navigation of the Bosphorus, and 
the declaration of the independence of the Krim Tartars, 
which was, in fact, the virtual surrender of this important 
province to the Russian empire. The Russian Cabinet had 
long coveted this valuable acquisition. Austria gained, by 
the same treaty, the Bucko wina, a cession which, in itself, 
added little to the disgrace, nor did it materially increase 
the losses of the Ottoman empire. 

Thus terminated the war of 1768, begun by Mustapha 



ABDUL HAM ID. 



with the generous view of emancipating the Polish nation. 
But this peace might well fill the Porte with suspicion and 
fear. The peace of Kainardghi, indeed, could only be re- 
garded as an armed truce. The fierce and intrepid warrior, 
Hassan Pasha, might be seen daily at the arsenal giving orders 
and directing the warlike preparations, accompanied by a 
young lion which he fondled as a fit companion, and soon a 
numerous fleet displayed the crescent on the waters of the 
Bosphorus. 

Meanwhile the Turkish ministers hastened to gather in a 
harvest of confiscations, and to punish the rebels whom the 
war had permitted to increase with impunity. Ali-bey, 
Sheik Daher, and the Waivode of Moldavia, fell under the 
dagger or the bowstring. Hassan -bey desolated the Morea 
by the most unsparing executions ; and in testimony of his 
barbarity, he erected a pyramid of human heads. It was 
thus that the Ottoman Sultan attempted to reconcile his 
disaffected subjects, and to unite their sympathies with the 
throne at a time when the nation was surrounded on all sides 
by ambitious and powerful enemies. 

Events in the Crimea, the result of the intrigues of Cath- 
erine, excited the germs of discontent, and soon led to a new 
war. The Porte was decidedly inclined to peace ; but the 
restless, intriguing, and ambitious nature of the Empress 
Catherine, who had now acquired unbounded sway in Russia, 
and whose armies had so frequently evinced their superiority 
over the tumultuary levies of the Turks, had resolved upon 
a further aggression on the Ottoman state. 

' The Khan Dewlet Guary attached to the Porte, alarmed 
by the defection of some powerful tribes of Tartars, fled 
from the Crimea ; and scarcely had he disappeared, than he 
was replaced by Saim Guary, a prince strongly biassed to the 
Russian interests. The Porte was compelled to yield to this 
appointment, or to proceed to the more dangerous alterna- 
tive of war. Having succeeded in nominating a Khan 
to the Crimea, a pretext, how flimsy soever, was not long 
awanting for seizing upon the territory itself. 

The gold and agents of Russia excited domestic troubles 
in his territory, and Saim Guary appealed to the Empress, 
which brought about the very crisis which the Cabinet of 

L 



162 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



St. Petersburg desired. The divan itself was no stranger 
to these feuds ; but the Turks were so far behind the Mus- 
covites in diplomatic intrigue, that they were not aware that 
the Kussians were the chief agents in stirring up the quarrels 
in the territory of the Khan. The Porte certainly would 
not have aided in fomenting dissensions in the government 
of Guary, had it been aware that Russia alone would gather 
the fruits. 

Prince Potemkin, the favourite of Catherine II., appeared 
on the scene at the head of sixty thousand troops. The 
divan, on its part, despatched a Pasha to secure possession 
of the isle of Taman, which was merely a precautionary 
measure; but Saim Guary, at the instigation of Russia, 
summoned the Pasha and his troops to retire ; the fierce and 
impolitic Ottoman, as an answer to the Khan, decapitated 
his envoy, upon which, Prince Potemkin declared, that the 
insult thus shown to the ally of his sovereign, should be 
punished, and he demanded a passage through the peninsula 
to the isle of Taman. The Khan had no sooner opened the 
passage of the Crimea than the Russian troops spread them- 
selves over the whole country. Kaffa was taken by surprise, 
the Imauns, Mirzahs, and Tartar chiefs, were conducted 
before Potemkin, and demanded to take the oaths of allegi- 
ance to his sovereign. Suwaroff overran the Eudijak and 
Kuban; the unfortunate Khan, alarmed and betrayed, 
transmitted an act of abdication to St. Petersburg. He 
accepted as an equivalent, a pension of eight hundred 
thousand rubles. To crown this perfidious transaction, the 
pension was repudiated by the Cabinet of St. Petersburg. 
Justice or honour had as little to do with the councils of 
Russia then, as at the present day ; and their tenacious ad- 
herence to the perfidy, ambition, and cunning, established 
by those princes whose policy they revere, is perhaps not 
one of the least remarkable features in their national char- 
acter. $ 

The natural fury of the Turks was excited with 
these transactions, and a general cry for war arose; but the 
divan was not prepared to risk his armies against the for- 
midable preparations of Russia. A new treaty was there- 
fore signed at Constantinople, in 1784. whereby the Tartars 



ABDUL HAMID. 



163 



were recognised as subjects of the Empress. Eussia thus 
acquired dominion over a million and a half of warlike 
Tartars, and Catherine ennobled her acquisitions by the 
titles of Taurida and the Caucasus. 

The Khan soon became an object of contempt to both 
parties, and after remaining a while in the suite of Pot em - 
kin, he was enticed by the insidious invitations of the 
divan to visit Constantinople. Ho sooner had he arrived 
at the capital, than the Ottomans revenged the loss of their 
Tartar provinces by his execution. 

The vicissitudes in the fate of empires had brought round 
to the Ottoman throne the same terror of the Autocrat 
which the Paleologi formerly had endured from the first 
Sultans of the Ottoman race. The- slightest step of their 
perfidious neighbour produced the utmost alarm in Con- 
stantinople and in the Seraglio. 

Catherine, whose pride was as unbounded as her ambition, 
marked her political contact with the Turks, by the most 
irritative expedients that female pride could adopt. She 
passed through these newly acquired provinces, with all the 
glare of a triumphal procession; the assemblage and re- 
view of large bodies of troops, and the pageants of several 
crowned heads and the corps diplomatique attended 
the progress of the Empress, The Turks took alarm; 
and Asia poured forth its myriads to form a rampart against 
the haughty ambition of Russia. The imperial interviews 
in the Taurida were shortened by the ominous cloud now 
hanging over Europe, which soon became plunged in a series 
of wars and revolutions, such as had hitherto been unknown 
in the records of modern history. The excitement of the 
Turks, however, could not be allayed. It was in vain that 
the Empress sought to continue the peace, so necessary to 
the security of those political objects which demanded her 
attention. The idle bravado of inscribing on the portal of 
a gate of Cherson, " the route to Byzantium," had fixed a 
rankling thorn in the minds of the Turks which could not 
be extracted; every explanation, however moderate and 
reasonable, was suspected, and war was proclaimed. 

Kilbourn, a fortress on the Dnieper, was occupied by the 
Russians, under the command of Suwaroff, and thither the 



164 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



Ottomans directed their attack. The cautious Eussian 
allowed the Turks to approach as far as the glacis, when a 
terrible combat commenced, which, after continuing twelve 
hours, ended in the destruction of the Turkish detachment. 
This successful repulse further increased the terror of 
Suwaroft's name. Joseph II., at the same time, and with- 
out issuing a declaration of war, made an assault upon 
Belgrade ; and the news of the failure of the attack upon 
the Eussian position, and the unexpected hostility of Austria, 
reached the capital at the same time. 

Such was the energy which the Porte at this serious crisis 
displayed, that the armies of Joussouff Pacha, the Vizier, ex- 
ceeded in a great degree the forces of the Eussian and the 
Imperial crowns; and at the same time, the redoubtable 
Hassan, with a powerful fleet, conveyed twenty thousand 
men to reconquer the Crimea. All these efforts were well 
nigh rendered unavailing in consequence of the revolt of the 
troops, which, more than ever, had become so frequent and 
dangerous, that a cautious and disciplined enemy might almost 
to a certainty calculate upon success. The Yizier could find no 
other means to control the refractory soldiery than by placing 
them in dangers and leading them to combats. A strong 
corps crossed the Danube, and forced the passes of Salatina, 
invaded the Bannat, and swept it of its inhabitants, who 
were dragged into slavery beyond * the Bosphorus. The 
imperialists were repulsed on all sides, and the Ottoman 
arms spread terror to the very gates of Vienna. Marshal 
Loudhon was called to the command of the imperial armies, 
under whose direction the disasters of 1787 were redeemed. 

In their naval operations, the Turks were not so success- 
ful. Part of the Eussian fleet was commanded by the in- 
trepid Paul Jones, and a second detachment by the Prince 
of Nassau. Hassan, who, upon this occasion, showed more 
bravery than prudence, engaged his fleet in a canal filled 
with dangerous shoals, where three of his largest vessels 
grounded; and in the midst of the confusion, a masked 
battery, constructed by SuwarofF on the Dnieper, completed 
the destruction of the Ottoman flotilla. A second effort 
was even more unpropitious. The Prince of Nassau took, 
burnt or sunk fifteen sail of the line or frigates, and more 



f 

SELIM III. 



165 



than eleven thousand Ottomans perished or were made 
prisoners. The wrecks of the Turkish armament took 
shelter under the cannon of Oczakow. 

Prince Potemkin had resolved on the destruction of this 
fortress, and he commenced the siege with a force of eighty 
thousand men. The walls were completely decayed, and 
most of the guns dismounted; and, indeed, such was the 
condition of the place, that the Russian commander did not 
think that it could hold out many days. Such, however, 
was the obstinacy with which the Turks defended the shat- 
tered ramparts, that the siege lasted four months. The 
garrison, roused to enthusiasm, exhibited many remarkable 
examples of courage and devotion. Seven horsemen were 
one morning seen issuing from the fortress; the Russians 
carelessly watched their movements, when all at once they 
darted with fury upon a Russian regiment. The Muscovites, 
struck with their courage, would fain have saved the small 
but heroic band, but the obstinate and dauntless attack of 
the Ottoman horsemen compelled the Russians to bayonet 
them. 

The final assault was made on the 6th December, 1788. 
Nearly the whole garrison were slain sword in hand: the 
slaughter lasted three days; a third of the Russian army 
had perished from cold, or disease, or by the sword; 
twenty-five thousand of the inhabitants and the garrison was 
the sacrifice of the Turks. With this bloody triumph, more 
glorious to the Turks than to their conquerors, Potemkin 
terminated the campaign. 

Abdul Hamid died in the spring of 1789, at the age of 
sixty-four, and Selim III., the only son of the Sultan Mus- 
tapha, mounted the imperial throne at the age of twenty- 
five. 



SELIM III. 

The Janizaries being assembled by Selim in the great 
plains of Sophia, it appeared to him that the German 
Emperor was not invincible. The Bannat had been depo- 
pulated, ravaged, and burnt, and England succeeded to ex- 



166 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



cite an ally for the Porte in the king of Sweden, who 
assembled an army in Finland, and a fleet of twenty sail of 
the line in the Baltic. The good fortune of Catherine, at 
this juncture, was conspicuous. The Swedish declaration 
of war, preceded only by four days the execution of the 
orders given for the sailing of the Cronstadt fleet for the 
Archipelago. Had this fleet sailed only a few days earlier, 
Gustavus would have been left master of the Baltic — the 
Russian ports without a navy, and the capital without de- 
fence. It was evidently imprudent on the part of Catherine 
to have ordered her whole disposable fleet to a distant sea, 
and to leave her coasts and capital totally at the mercy of 
her enemies ; and so little had she calculated on the intrigues 
of England and the hostility of Sweden, that the hour for 
the sailing of the fleet had actually been fixed. In this 
instance we perceive that the greatest monarchs and the 
most successful diplomatists are often indebted to favourable 
coincidences that lie far beyond the reach of their calcula- 
tions. Catherine gloried in opposing herself to difficulties ; 
and despising the hostility of the Turks in the south, she 
instantly despatched the fleet under Admiral Greig, originally 
destined for the Archipelago, to combat Gustavus, while an 
army was concentrated with incredible activity on the 
borders of Finland. The hostile fleets engaged in a doubt- 
ful action; which, together with the revolt of his army be- 
fore Fredericksham, disgusted the king of Sweden with the 
war. He hastily retired to Stockholm, and Catherine was 
preserved from encountering the most imminent foreign 
danger of her reign. 

The Russian army under Potemkin comprised nearly all 
the effective force of the empire. Selim had reinforced 
the Ottoman army by an addition of one hundred and fifty 
thousand men. The command of the Ottomans was given 
to the Pasha of Widdin. The Porte now received the sub- 
mission of the rebellious Pasha of Albania, who, faithful to 
Islam ism, sent to the Porte the heads of the unfortunate 
German officers who had been deputed by the court of Vienna, 
to negotiate a treaty favourable to their master. 

The campaign of 1789 commenced inauspiciously for the 
Turks. The prince of Cobourg left his winter quarters in 



SELIM III. 



167 



Gallieia, and advanced into Moldavia, along the right bank 
of the Sirath ; Suwaroff, moving at the same time from 
Jassey, prepared to support him. Forty thousand Otto- 
mans pressed forward to attack the combined forces, and the 
battle took place on the 21st July. The new tactics which 
the Kussians and Austrians had adopted were conspicuous 
on this occasion, and proved the utter inability of the Turkish 
mode of warfare to compete with modern discipline. The 
allied forces were divided into small squares, with cannon 
placed at the angles* The moment the spahis penetrated 
the intervals between these squares, they were immediately 
overthrown by a fire on either flank, from the squares 
and batteries of the allies. The Ottomans were entirely 
overthrown ; their stores and immense magazines became a 
prey to the victors. The commander of the Turks was none 
other than the intrepid Hassan, who, from being a Capitan 
Pasha, had become a general ; but destiny had ravaged from 
him victory alike by land and sea. 

But the Grand Yizier, who was approaching with a hun- 
dred thousand men, determined that the enemy were not 
thus easy to retain the fruits of the victory. The prince 
of Cobourg approached the Turkish army, and Suwaroff, 
who had been separated from him, appeared at Rimnik, at 
the very instant the two hostile armies were preparing to 
engage. 

This battle was fought on the same plain where Bajazet T. 
overthrew the Hospidar Stephen. The hostile armies were 
greatly disproportioned in point of numbers. The Ottoman 
army consisted of a hundred thousand, while the allies hardlv 
numbered twenty-five thousand combatants. The plains of 
Rimnik were distinguished by one of the most decisive 
victories of the war ; twenty-five thousand Turks perished ; 
the whole of their battering-train and stores were taken ; and 
the broken remnants of their vast army, threw themselves 
partly into the fortress of Brahilow, and partly into the in- 
trenched camp of Shumla. Hassan assumed the command ; 
but it must have appeared evident to this indomitable chief, 
that he did not possess the means of averting the disastrous 
consequences of the late defeat. Bucharest yielded to the 
arms of the prince of Cobourg. Belgrade capitulated ; and 



168 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



there no longer existed any fortress but Nissa between the 
victors and the capital of the Sultan Selim. 

Towards the mouths of the Danube the Eussians passed 
on from triumph to triumph. Bender opened her gates ; 
Koutoukai, Galatz, and Akerman were occupied by SuwarofF, 
whose army formed the siege of Ismail. In these disas- 
trous circumstances, all the states of Europe secretly or openly 
espoused the interests of the divan against the ambitious pro- 
jects of Russia. They might well be alarmed, for the court 
of St. Petersburg intended nothing short of the total sub- 
version of the Ottoman power. At this period Joseph II. 
descended to the tomb, and by this event the dangers of 
Turkey were averted. Leopold, discovering that the trea- 
sures and strength of his empire had been exhausted in the 
pursuit of objects foreign to the interests of his people, re- 
sumed merely a defensive position. 

Catherine, haughty and indignant, refused the pacification 
proposed by the European courts ; and disdaining the ap- 
pearance of submitting to dictation, she despatched orders to 
her generals, and the campaign of 1790 commenced. 

In every quarter the same unfortunate consequences to 
the Turks attended the war. Their armies were defeated 
in every engagement, and their remaining fortresses wrested 
from their grasp. The Russian squadrons swept the Black 
sea, and intercepted all supplies of corn for the capital. Such 
disasters, so closely approximating to the capital, excited 
universal murmurs and discontent. Nightly conflagrations 
took place. Selim, naturally noble, cheerful, and just, be- 
came, from these repeated disasters, morose and cruel. The 
capture of Ismail carried his terror to the highest pitch. 

This important fortress, which Suwaroff had been desired 
by Potemkin to take at any cost, was garrisoned by forty 
thousand men. This is in many respects one of the most 
memorable sieges on record. The fortress was assaulted by 
an energy and violence of effort which has scarcely a paral- 
lel ; and the capture was followed by a massacre which filled 
Europe with horror, and exists as a perpetual stain upon the 
memory of the savage barbarian who perpetrated it. The 
garrison also was animated by a heroism scarcely if ever 
surpassed ; the very women disputed the place, poniard in 



SELIM III. 



169 



Land, from house to house. Fifty thousand Mussulmans, 
with their valiant commander, fell in the defence. The frost, 
at the time being so severe, as not to allow the interment of 
the dead, six days were employed in casting the bodies of 
the slain into the Danube. " The Russian flag floats on the 
ramparts of Ismail/' was the laconic despatch of Suwaroff, 
announcing the event to Potemkin. The spoils and plunder 
of the city were immense ; but the blood-stained trophy 
which signalised this memorable siege — the most murderous 
and most terrible of modern times — has imprinted an indeli- 
able stain upon the annals of Eussian conquests. 

The alarming news of the fall of Ismail produced all the 
appearance of a revolt in the capital ; the Sultan became 
the more and more invisible to the discontented populace; 
the Ulema endeavoured to allay their fears, by announcing 
that every Mussulman slain in the defence of Ismail, merited 
the paradise of the Prophet. Selim, moved by the menaces 
of the people, sullied his reign by an execution, which every 
mind that sympathises with a noble, disinterested, and 
generous enthusiasm must regret. The brave and aged 
Hassan had been made Grand Yizier; but his Viziriat be- 
came the threshold of the tomb. 

The execution of Hassan was equally unjust, ungenerous, 
and impolitic; for his death served only to increase the 
alarm and discontent of the Ottoman forces. This brave 
warrior, after a life marked by exploits almost equal to those 
of fabulous story, was condemned to expiate misfortunes 
which no single arm could avert; and the condemnation 
which abridged his glorious career, can find no plausible 
apology. 

An unlooked for event, which sometimes breaks in and 
dispels the misfortunes of nations, occurred at this unfor- 
tunate period to the Ottomans, and alike revived their 
hopes and dispelled their fears. Leopold signed a peace 
on the most advantageous terms for the Porte, on the 4th 
April, 1791. Belgrade, and all the Austrian conquests 
were restored with the exception of the temporary cession 
of the city of Choczim. 

The Empress Catherine being now desirous of peace, a 
treaty was signed at Jassey on the 9th January, 1792. 



170 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

The stipulations of the treaty of Kainardgy were renewed ; 
the river Dniester was recognised as the frontier of the two 
empires ; Oczakow was ceded to Russia, with the large space 
comprised between the Bog and the Dniester, on which 
soon arose the important city and establishments of Odessa ; 
the cession of the Crimea, of the isle of Tarn an, and part of 
the Kuban, were again formally confirmed, with an indem- 
nity of twelve millions of piastres, for the expenses of the 
war. On her part the Empress restored all her other con- 
quests* and as soon as the treaty was signed, she renounced 
the payment of the money, declaring herself satisfied w r ith 
the recognition of its justice. The most important article 
of the treaty was the concession to Russian ships to enter 
the straits of the Bosphorus, and navigate the Black sea; 
henceforth, under the Russian flag, foreign vessels of other 
nations, and especially Greeks, found an effectual protection. 

This war, which threatened the total overthrow of the 
Ottoman empire, was ended with only a trifling loss. 
Oczakow and a portion of territory were the results — an 
extremely slender concession compared with the fear 
entertained throughout the state during the continuance 
of the war. Such a fortunate escape, however, cannot 
be attributed either to the military power or diplomatic 
skill of the Porte; far less to the justice or generosity 
of Catherine. The menacing appearance of the political 
horizon in 1792, alone determined the court of St. Peters- 
burg to sign a favourable peace. 

At this period the French revolution established and en- 
forced its principles, and overturned a throne which had 
stood erect during fourteen centuries. Such an event, 
arising in the west of Europe, in a state the most powerful 
and enlightened in Christendom, might well make the 
most powerful monarch tremble; and the results of this 
fearful conflagration, more than realized the fears of the 
most speculative politician or the most alarmed potentate. 
The wisdom of Catherine — nay, all the statesmen and all the 
philosophy of Europe, could not foretell that with the de- 
struction of the ancient capital of the Muscovite empire, 
t wenty years afterwards, the tr iumphs of the revolution would 
cease, or that in the heart of Russia, the star of the revolu- 



SELIM III. 



171 



tionary hero, who had trampled upon nearly all the states 
in Europe, would first begin to wane. 

The Ottoman troops, during the late wars had usually been 
dispersed by armies far inferior to them in point of numbers, 
which clearly demonstrated to the Ottoman government the 
superiority of the European system in military science and 
tactics. But although the necessity of reform was thus 
strongly demonstrated, the difficulty and danger of effecting 
any organic change in a system hallowed by time and re- 
ligion, and deeply engrafted on the feelings of the people, 
became equally apparent. The dangerous insubordination 
of the Janizaries, and the blindness and ignorance of the 
populace, rendered the attempt difficult, if not impossible. 
The difficulties were still increased by the Pashas of the 
empire, who, perceiving the dangers that surrounded the 
state, sought only to benefit themselves, by securing their 
independency in their respective pashaliks. Thus Bagdad, 
Bassorah, Aleppo, Acre, Albania, and others, disregarded 
the firmans of the Sublime Porte, while the Wahabites of 
Arabia succeeded in occupying the whole of the sacred 
territory, and set at defiance the orders and menaces of the 
Ottoman court. The peace, therefore, which had been con- 
cluded with Bussia was far from healing all the disorders 
that afflicted the Ottoman empire. The reverses and 
defeats which their arms had sustained, and the usual clam- 
ours and discontents of the people consequent upon these 
disasters, had disorganised the whole internal movements 
of the government. In this state of matters the Porte 
contented itself with winking at the insubordination of the 
various Pashas, and resolved to wait a future day of retri- 
bution, 

Selim as well as his ministers knew the imperative necessity 
of introducing a new and renovating system into the 
Turkish armies, without which it seemed impossible that she 
could maintain her power as a nation : yet every step brought 
the government into the most imminent dangers. Europe 
throughout was convulsed to the centre by the terrible wars 
and changes which arose out of the events following the 
commencement of the French revolution. It became there- 



172 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



fore the desire of the Ottoman government to keep aloof 
altogether from the storm. 

Meanwhile the Ottoman state was embroiled in civil war, 
which even more than her foreign enemies threatened the 
destruction of the empire. 

Paswan Oghi, Pasha of Widdin, openly espoused the 
determination of the Janizaries to resist all attempts at 
improving their discipline, and thus Paswan soon be- 
came a character of national importance. The grandfather 
of this chief was a chimney-sweeper in the city of Widdin on 
the Danube. Paswan had been early instructed in the mili- 
tary and political science of his country ; and being possessed 
of great activity of mind and a violent temper, coupled with 
a rooted and immovable bigotry, he rendered himself through 
his arts and address, a great favourite with the soldiers and 
the people. Circumstances occurred that induced Paswan^ 
to take up arms against the government, and he soon be- \ 
came so formidable, that all the strength of the Ottoman \ 
empire failed in reducing him to obedience. Death arrested 
the career and projects of this powerful and dangerous chief, 
and dissolved the confederacy of the discontented soldiery, 
and the cities returned immediately to their wonted obedience. 

Czerni Georges, copying the example of Paswan, became 
the actor of similar excesses in Servia. Born of obscure 
parents at Belgrade, his first resistance of legitimate rule 
arose from a dread of punishment for having blown out the 
brains of a Turk. He soon collected a band of desperate 
characters, who became noted for courage and success. No 
obstacles deterred, no menaces daunted him. Pursuing a 
career of personal hatred against the Turks as the oppressors 
of his country, he excited the vengeance of the Ottoman 
government against the whole of their Servian subjects. His 
father Georges, venerable by age, sought by every means to 
allay the implacable hatred of his son to the Ottoman rule, 
and used every effort in his power to persuade him to re- 
turn to obedience. Georges even accompanied Czerni until 
they reached the first post of the enemy, and threatening to 
reveal the haunts of his son and his rebel band to the 
Pasha of Belgrade, Czerni exclaimed, " Inflexible old man, 
thou shalt neither betray thy son nor thy country/' on 



SKETCH OF EGYPT. 



173 



which he instantly shot him through the head. Czerni in 
the following wars became a formidable enemy to the Turks, 
by favouring the Russians, which, in fact, deprived the Turks 
of their strongest defences on the Danube. 

The French Directory manifesting a desire to cultivate 
with the Porte the relations of amity that had so long subsist- 
ed, accredited to Constantinople General Aubert Dabayet, in 
1796, as their ambassador. He bore to the Sultan a new 
and interesting present — a train of artillery — in the highest 
state of equipment, with officers and artillery men qualified 
to instruct the Topegis, and to improve the foundries for 
cannon at Tophana. Officers competent to discipline and 
instruct the corps of Janizaries and spahis also accompanied 
the ambassador. The endeavours of the French were zeal- 
ously aided by the exertions and example of the Sultan, but 
they were viewed with suspicion and discontent by the Jani- 
zaries. A new corps was formed and disciplined in the new 
tactics ; and the last acts of the injured Hassan was to en- 
deavour to naturalize this beneficial change ; and by his 
liberality and favour he formed a regular battalion of in- 
fantry. They became the objects of the railleries and menaces 
of the Janizaries, although their number never exceeded six 
hundred men. These, however, few as they were, rendered 
important services to their country in their memorable de- 
fence of Acre. 

Involved in perils by the disastrous events of the Russian 
campaigns ; his authority disputed by the powerful Pashas, 
and thwarted in every endeavour to infuse plans of reno- 
vation into his forces ; the Sultan beheld every danger 
heightened, and his empire brought into collision with the 
struggles and warfare of Europe, by the French invasion 
of Egypt. 

SKETCH OF EGYPT. 

Egypt became a province of the Turkish empire in 1517, 
and was now destined to be the theatre of many memorable 
exploits. 

Among all the ancient nations which have been distin- 



174 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



guished in history, there is none more worthy of notice 
than the kingdom of Egypt. If not the birth-place, it was 
the early protector of the sciences; and cherished every 
species of knowledge which was known or cultivated in re- 
mote times. It was the principal source from which the 
Grecians derived their information, and after all its manifold 
windings and enlargements, we may still trace the stream 
of our knowledge to the banks of the Nile. Every ancient 
nation lays claims to a higher origin than legitimate history 
can sanction. Egypt extends its claims to a most distant 
and fabulous period. But independent of the antiquity of 
Egypt and the many remarkable events of which it has 
been the theatre, it is one of the most singular countries in 
the world, not only from its geographical position, but its 
physical conformation. It consists entirely of the valley of 
the Nile, which taking its rise in the mountains of Abyssinia, 
travels the arid deserts of Africa, and falls into the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, after a course of two thousand five hundred 
miles. The Nile, after receiving the tributary waters of the 
Bahr-el-Abiad, precipitates itself by the cataracts of Sennaar, 
into the lower valley, six hundred miles long, which forms 
the country of Egypt. This valley, though of such immense 
length, is in general only from three to eighteen miles in 
breadth, and is bounded on either side by the rocky moun- 
tains of the deserts. Its habitable and cultivated portion is 
entirely confined to that part of the surface which is over- 
flowed by the inundations of the stream. As far as the 
water rises, the soil is of extraordinary fertility; beyond 
it, the glowing desert alone is to be seen. At the distance 
of about one hundred and fifty miles from the sea, the Nile 
divides itself into two branches, which fall into the Mediter- 
ranean, one at Rosetta, the other at Damietta; the space 
which these two streams enclose, is called the Delta, which, 
from the well known inundations of the Nile, has acquired 
an extraordinary degree of richness. These floods, arising 
from the warmth of spring, followed by the melting of the 
snow and heavy rains of July and August in the mountains of 
Abyssinia, cause the river to rise gradually during a period 
of nearly three months. The inundations begin in May, 
and attain the height of sixteen to eighteen feet about the 



SKETCH OF EGYPT. 



175 



end of August. Centuries may elapse without more than a 
shower of dazzling mist moistening the surface of Egypt ; 
hence cultivation can only be extended beyond the level to 
which the water rises, by artificial irrigation ; and the efforts 
made in this respect by the ancient inhabitants, constitute, 
perhaps, the most wonderful of the many monuments of 
industry which they have left to succeeding ages. 

No sooner have the floods retired, than the soil, covered 
to a considerable depth by a rich slime, is cultivated 
and sown; and the seed vegetating quickly in that rich 
mould, and under a tropical sun, springs up, and in three 
months yields a hundred, and sometimes a hundred and fifty 
fold. During the winter months the plain is covered with 
rich harvests, besprinkled with flowers, and dotted with 
flocks ; but in March the great heat begins, the earth cracks, 
vegetation disappears, and the country is fast relapsing into 
the sterility of the desert, when the annual floods of the 
Nile again cover it with their vivifying waters. 

In ancient times Egypt and Libya, it is well known, were 
the granary of Borne. All the productions of the temperate 
and torrid zone flourish in this favoured region. Besides the 
ordinary grains of Europe, Egypt produces the finest crops of 
rice, maize, sugar, indigo, cotton and senna. Few trees, 
however, are to be seen over its vast extent. Its horses are 
celebrated for their beauty, their spirit, and their incom- 
parable docility; and it possesses also that wonderful animal 
the camel, which treads without fatigue the moving sands; 
and by its assistance, the natives traverse, as with a living 
ship, the ocean of the desert. 

At the time of the conquest of Egypt by the Mahometans, 
it is said to have contained twenty millions of souls, includ- 
ing those who dwelt in the adjoining oases of the desert; 
but at the period of the French expedition, the population 
of the country consisted of only two millions and a half. To 
an unstable and tyrannical government, and to the general 
decay of all the great establishments for watering the 
country, which the wisdom of antiquity had constructed, we 
may ascribe the decrease of population, the present limited 
extent of agriculture, and the perpetual encroachments 
which the sands of the desert are making on the regions of 



176 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



human cultivation. Alexandria is situated at one of the 
old mouths of the Nile, now choked up with sand. The 
harbour, capable of containing all the navies of Europe, can 
admit vessels drawing twenty-one feet of water; but the 
entrance of the harbours of Rosetta and Damietta has only 
six feet on the bar. 

When the Turks took possession of Egypt, the importance 
of that country was not appreciated by them; the savage 
thirst of conquest alone, hurried them onward. Two of the 
greatest conquerors, Alexander in ancient, and Napoleon 
Buonaparte in modern times, were fully impressed with its 
vast importance. The great Leibnitz, in the time of Louis 
XIV., pointed out Egypt as the place where the real blow was 
to be struck for the subjugation of the Dutch. ." There/' said 
he, " you will find the true commercial route to India ; you 
will wrest that lucrative trade from Holland." " The posses- 
sion of Egypt," he adds, " will open a prompt communica- 
tion with the richest countries of the East. It will unite 
the commerce of the Indies to that of France, and pave the 
way for great captains to march to conquests worthy of 
Alexander." These ideas, however, were beyond the age, 
and they lay dormant till revived by the genius of Napoleon. 
To no country in the world is the independence of Egypt of 
such vital importance, as to Great Britain. Napoleon was 
fully aware of this; and independent of the romantic ideas 
of Oriental conquest, which from an early period filled his 
mind, it was his favourite opinion through life, that Egypt 
was the true line of communication with India; and that it 
was there that the English power could alone be seriously 
affected. 

The discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope 
wrested the commerce of the East from its ancient channels ; 
and for a time the possession of Egypt may have appeared 
comparatively worthless to any European power. The re- 
cent conquests, however, of Great Britain in the East, and 
the vast empire which she has established there, render the 
channel of communication by the Nile, of paramount import- 
ance, and fully justify her in watching with the most jeal- 
ous eye, the intrigues or encroachments of any power, having 
even a remote tendency to disturb the existing state of 



FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 



177 



things in Egypt and the adjoining states. The extension of 
steam-power by land and sea appears to be destined to re- 
store the communication with the East to its original channel. 
The construction of a railway or canal to Suez will open a 
direct communication between the Mediterranean and the 
Red sea ; and thus the commerce of the East may again 
flow into the channels which nature seems to have formed 
for its reception. 



FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 

After the republican armies of Erance had vanquished 
• Holland, shaken the power of Austria, overthrown the states 
of Yenice, and trampled upon the independence of Italy, 
many inferior states sued for protection ; and at Campo- 
Eormio, upon the 17th October, 1797, a treaty was entered 
into between the Emperor of Austria and the Republic of 
France. Elated with conquest, France had been threaten- 
ing the independence of Great Britain, and attempted to 
wound her on the part of Ireland, where many discontents 
were already brooding. 

After the peace of Campo-Formio, the public were more 
than ever amused at the designs of France against Great 
Britain ; but while the attention of Britain was directed to 
that quarter, preparations were secretly making at Toulon for 
a great and important expedition. 

Whether the originating impulse of the expedition to 
Egypt, arose out of the design to convert that fertile country 
into a French colony ; or whether the Directory framed it 
to rid themselves of a general whom they feared ; or whether 
Napoleon himself suggested the expedition in order to escape 
for a time from the gaze of the Parisians, and to dazzle his 
countrymen with new and romantic conquests, in lands 
renowned in fabulous story, and hallowed in history both 
sacred and profane ; or whether he really meditated the found- 
ing of a new dynasty in the East, of rivalling the conquests 
of Alexander, and returning in triumph to Paris by the 
Bosphorus and the Alps ; whatever be the true causes, the 
French expedition was as unprincipled an attack as could be 

M 



178 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



made upon a friendly power — a power always fulfilling to 
France the duties of a zealous ally. 

It was on the 19th May 1798. that the formidable arma- 
ment, — consisting of 13 ships of the line, two of 64 guns, 
14 frigates, 72 brigs and cutters, and 400 transports, and 
bearing thirty-six thousand soldiers of all arms, and above 
ten thousand sailors, — set sail from Toulon. On the 16th 
of June, the strongly fortified island of Malta was sur- 
rendered, through the defection and treachery of the Knights. 
" It is well, general," said Caffarelli to Napoleon, " that there 
was one within to open the gates to us ; we should have had 
more trouble in entering if the place had been altogether 
empty." 

Having arranged the affairs of that settlement, the French 
fleet set sail again upon the 19th of June, and directed its 
course towards Egypt. 

The success which had attended Napoleon's intrigues with 
the Knights of Malta, induced him to extend his views be- 
yond Egypt, for the dismemberment of the Turkish empire. 
With this view he secretly despatched his aide-de-camp, La- 
valette, to Ali Pasha, the most powerful of the European 
vassals of the Porte, to endeavour to stimulate him to revolt. 
He bore a letter from the French general, in which Napoleon 
urged him to enter into an immediate concert for measures 
calculated to subvert the Ottoman empire. The crafty 
Greek, however, did not enter into the proposed alliance, 
and accordingly this attempt to shake the throne of the 
Grand Seignior failed of effect. 

While secretly conducting these intrigues, as well as 
openly assailing one of the provinces of their empire, both 
Napoleon and the Directory left nothing untried to prolong 
the slumber of the Ottoman government, and to induce them 
to believe that the French had no hostile designs whatever 
against them, and that they were in reality inimical only to 
the Beys, the common enemy of both. With this view, Na- 
poleon wrote to the Grand Vizier a letter full of assurances 
of the friendly dispositions both of himself and his govern- 
ment, and the eternal alliance of the Republic with the 
Mussulmans ; and that the object of the Directory was to 
erect a barrier of defence of which the Ottoman empire stood 



FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 



179 



so much in need, against its natural enemies who were 
leaguing together for its destruction. 

The movements of the French were not unknown to the 
British government, and Admiral Nelson was appointed to 
the command of a squadron to watch the movements of the 
French fleet. Having looked into the harbour of Toulon, 
and found they had escaped, he immediately sailed towards 
Egypt, whither it was supposed they had directed their course. 
Having learned at Malta that they had departed for Egypt, 
he crowded sail and stood after the fleet of Brueys. The 
French admiral steered his course along the northern coast 
of the Mediterranean, while Nelson kept near the African 
shore. On this account, Nelson arrived off the coast of Egypt 
before the French fleet made its appearance, and not 
thinking it expedient to wait upon that station, he steered 
his course into the Levant. Soon after his departure, the 
French fleet appeared upon the Libyan shore, a few leagues 
westward of Alexandria. The friends of the Grand Seignior 
and the Mameluke beys, were equally alarmed at the arrival 
of the unwelcome visitors. 

Such was the ability of Talleyrand, who had been ap- 
pointed ambassador at Constantinople, that he succeeded in 
impressing upon the Divan the perfidious delusion of Na- 
poleon and the Directory. Proportionally great was the 
general indignation when accounts arrived of the invasion of 
Egypt. Preparations for war were made with the utmost 
activity ; the French charge-d' affairs, Buffin, was sent to the 
Seven Towers ; and the indignation of the Divan brought 
forth one of those eloquent manifestoes, which a sense of 
perfidious injustice seldom fails to produce among the honest 
though illiterate rulers of mankind. After pointing out the 
treachery and dissimulation practised by the French on the 
Turkish government, the manifesto says, " And now, as if 
to demonstrate to the world that France makes no distinc- 
tion between its friends and its enemies, it has in the midst 
of a profound peace with Turkey, and while still professing 
to the Porte the sentiments of friendship, invaded, without 
either provocation, complaint, or declaration of war, but 
after the usage of pirates, Egypt, one of the most valuable 



180 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



provinces of the Ottoman empire, from which, to this hour, 
it has received only marks of friendship." 

The landing of the French army was instantly begun. 
Buonaparte himself led the way ; and without waiting till 
the whole forces were on shore, the troops began to march 
towards Alexandria. This city was quickly reduced to 
obedience, and Buonaparte directed his troops to move to 
Grand Cairo. Meanwhile admiral Brueys moored his fleet 
on the coast of Aboukir. 

But while everything was prospering on land, and while 
the most brilliant hopes had been excited in the minds of 
the chief and his generals, a desperate reverse awaited them 
at sea. Nelson received intelligence in Greece of the 
probable destination of the French fleet, and he resolved to 
return to Alexandria. On the 1st of August 1798, he per- 
ceived, with exultation, the fleet of Admiral Brueys anchored 
in the bay of Aboukir. The French ships were moored at 
a proper distance from the shore, and placed in a curved 
line, according to the direction of the deep water. The 
headmost vessel was placed near a sandbank; the line of 
battle was flanked by frigates, and the van protected by a 
battery on a small island. No contrivance could have been 
better formed for putting the French fleet in a posture of 
defence; but danger and difficulty roused the fertile genius 
of the British admiral. 

Shortening sail on a sudden, he directed part of his 
squadron to pass between the French fleet and the sand- 
bank, which the republican admiral viewed as the great 
security of his vessels. While a part of the British ships 
penetrated in this manner between the enemy and the shore, 
others moored opposite them within a small distance; and 
the French being thus exposed to a cross and destructive fire, 
and the British dropping farther down on each side of the 
enemy's line, as their success allowed them, the French fleet 
was either destroyed or taken excepting two ships of the 
line and two frigates. 

The consequences of the battle of the Nile were to the 
last degree disastrous to France. It revived in Europe a 
coalition against the Kepublican government; and in the 
East, it brought on the array of Egypt the whole weight of 



FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 



181 



the Ottoman empire. The Sultan was not so foolish as to 
be persuaded that it was an act of friendship on the part of 
France to invade one of the most important provinces of the 
Ottoman empire. No sooner therefore was the divan at 
liberty to speak its real sentiments, by the destruction of 
the armament which had spread terror throughout the 
Levant, than the Turks gave vent to their indignation. 

War was formally declared against France ; the differences 
with Russia were adjusted; and the formation of an army 
was immediately decreed to restore the authority of the 
Crescent on the banks of the Nile. The invasion of Egypt 
produced an alliance between Turkey and Russia, and the sus- 
pension of all the ancient animosities between the Christian 
and the Mussulman. On the 1 st of September the combined 
Russian and Turkish squadron, in presence of an immense 
concourse of spectators, passed under the walls of the Serag- 
lio, and swept majestically through the Hellespont. Al- 
ready, without any formal treaty, the courts of St. Peters- 
burg, London and Constantinople acted in concert, and the 
basis of a triple alliance was laid, and sent to their respec- 
tive courts for ratification. 

The situation of the French army became every day more 
critical. Surrounded by a hostile population, blockaded by 
the fleets of England, unable to obtain succours from home, 
or to return in case of disaster, and about to be exposed to 
the formidable forces of the Turkish empire, it appeared pro- 
bable that the comparatively small force of Napoleon would 
soon sink under the united pressure of famine and the sword. 
But the firmness of the chief did not forsake him. Mills 
were erected, at which flour was ground as finely as at Paris : 
a foundry in which cannon were cast, and a manufactory of 
gunpowder, were established, which rendered the army in- 
dependent for its ammunition and artillery. An institute at 
Cairo concentrated the labours of the numerous scientific 
persons who accompanied the army ; the extremities and line 
of the canal of Suez were explored by Napoleon in person ; 
printing presses were set agoing at Cairo ; the cavalry and 
artillery, remounted with the admirable horses of Arabia; 
the troops equipped in new clothing manufactured in the 
country ; the fortifications of Rosetta, Damietta and Alex- 

# 



182 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

andria, put in a respectable posture of defence; while skil- 
ful draftsmen prepared, amidst the wonders of upper Egypt, 
the magnificent work, which, under the auspices of Denon, 
has immortalized the expedition. In the meantime a con- 
stitution was arranged for the province of Egypt somewhat 
resembling the Turkish model; but while the people had 
the appearance of choosing the principal officers of state, the 
power of the government was really in the hands of the 
French agent. 

Excluded from all intercourse from Europe, and menaced 
with a serious attack by land and sea, from the Turks, 
Napoleon resolved to assail his enemies by an expedition into 
Syria, where the principal army of the Sultan was assembling. 
The French army met with many obstacles on their march. 
They took El-Arish, then Jaffa, with several places of in- 
ferior consideration; and in the month of March 1799, they 
opened trenches within a few yards of the walls of Acre. 
In this attempt, Napoleon was completely foiled, as well by 
the bravery of the garrison, as by the skill of Sir Sidney 
Smith, who on board the Tigre, and accompanied by two 
frigates, ably assisted and encouraged the defenders. A 
Turkish fleet, consisting of thirty sail, under the command 
of Hassan Bey, made its appearance; and Buonaparte re- 
solved to abandon St. Jean d'Acre, after a siege of sixty days. 

During the siege, the Turks had not been idle. By vast 
exertions they had succeeded in rousing the Mahometan 
population of all the surrounding provinces; the remains of 
the Mamelukes of Ibrahim Bey; the Janizaries of Aleppo 
and of Damascus, joined to an innumerable horde of irregular 
cavalry, formed a vast army, which threatened to envelope 
the besieging force. Napoleon, in order to anticipate the 
enemy, arrived not far from the banks of the Jordan at the 
head of fresh divisions in time to save the French army from 
destruction. This victory, gained by six thousand veterans 
over thirty thousand Oriental militia, completely secured 
the flank and rear of Napoleon's army, and exhibited the 
immense superiority of European tactics over the irregular 
onsets of undisciplined bravery. Kleber occupied in force 
the bridge of Jacob, and fixed his head-quarters at the vil- 
lage of Nazareth. 



FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 



183 



After the repulse before Acre Napoleon resolved to re- 
turn to Egypt. Troops of cavalry harassed his army on the 
rear, and bands of Arabs attacked them in every quarter. 
By fatigue and slaughter the line of retreat was strewn with 
the bodies of the dead. The French, on their part, wantonly 
burned the villages as they passed, destroyed the fields of 
corn, and marked their route by desolation. 

In the meantime a Turkish fleet had arrived in the bay of 
Aboukir, with an army of nine thousand men; and Na- 
poleon, who was apprehensive that Sir Sidney Smith would 
be present to assist the Turks with his activity and skill, de- 
termined upon an immediate trial of strength and fortune. 
He marched his army with rapidity toward Alexandria ; and 
thence led his forces to attack the Turkish camp. Both 
wings of the Grand Seignior's army were assailed at once by 
detachments in advance, and Murat with the cavalry darted 
upon the centre. The lines were thrown into confusion, and 
most of the Turkish army either fell on the field, or were 
drowned or killed in their attempt to reach their ships. 
Five thousand corpses floated in the bay of Aboukir ; two 
thousand had perished in the battle ; the like number were 
made prisoners of war in the fort. Hardly any escaped ; a 
circumstance almost unexampled in modern warfare. 

After the triumph of Aboukir, Buonaparte returned to 
Cairo. There he attempted to tranquillise the people, and 
to establish a regular and subservient government. He had 
formerly professed himself to belong to the Mahometan faith ; 
and at Cairo he celebrated a grand festival of the prophet 
with much solemnity. Having finished these arrangements, 
he returned to Alexandria, professing that the situation of 
public affairs required his presence, but really with an in- 
tention to embrace an opportunity of returning to France. 

In the port of Alexandria there were two frigates lying 
at anchor and ready for sea. Some hopes, aided by a natural 
wish, induced the friends of Buonaparte to encourage an 
expectation that he was meditating a return to Europe. No 
intimation was given, not a hint dropped, but upon the 
morning of the 24th August, by the dawn of day, his at- 
tendants, trembling with expectation, were commanded to 
wait his pleasure on the sea-shore. Instantly they were on 



184 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



board, and the vessels under sail, with a fair wind, steered 
their course along the coast of Africa. At length having 
made for Corsica, they were compelled by contrary winds to 
anchor in the bay of Ajaccio. After a sojourn of eight days 
in the place of his nativity, Napoleon set sail with a fair 
wind. On the following evening an English fleet of four- 
teen sail was descried in the midst of the rays of the setting 
sun. Admiral Gantheaume proposed to return to Corsica, 
but Napoleon replied, " No, spread every sail ; every man to 
his post ; steer for the north-west/' The morning sun dis- 
pelled all apprehensions, by disclosing the English fleet, 
which had mistaken the frigates for Venetian vessels, steer- 
ing peacefully towards the north-east. On the 8th October 
Napoleon and his small band of followers arrived in the bay 
of Fregus. 

The French, it is well known, were expelled from Egypt 
in 1801 by the British troops under the command of General 
Abercromby. This was immediately followed by a piece of 
treachery on the part of the Turks, which, had it not been 
firmly resisted by the English commander, might have 
brought disgrace on the British name. So long as the Beys 
retained their ascendency, the Turkish government was 
aware of the insecure tenure by which their authority was 
maintained in Egypt ; and it was secretly resolved that the 
Beys should be extirpated. In order to carry this design 
into effect, seven of the chiefs were invited to Alexandria to 
hold a conference with the Capitan Pasha, by whom they 
were received with every demonstration of respect, and in- 
vited on board a British vessel. But when they had got 
into the boats which were to convey them thither, they took 
fright, and desired to be returned on shore. This was re- 
fused, and a struggle ensued in which three of the Beys 
were killed and four wounded. This violation of public 
faith excited the most lively indignation in the British army. 
General Hutchison immediately put his troops under arms, 
and compelled the Capitan Pasha to surrender the four Beys 
who had been wounded ; and the bodies of the slain were 
interred with military honours at Alexandria. 

Such violations of faith are not unusual among Asiatic 
despots ; they admit of no palliation. Examples of bar- 



FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 



185 



barity, however,, had been perpetrated by the French, 
during their short occupation of Egypt, in which they appear 
to have emulated the most frightful instances of barbaric re- 
venge. Napoleon himself, after the suppression of the revolt 
of Cairo, calmly writes that he had caused thirty heads a-night 
to be taken off in the solitude of the jail. — The frightful 
massacre of four thousand prisoners taken at the storming 
of Jaffa, has no parallel in modern warfare. The bones of 
the vast multitude still remain in great heaps amidst the 
sand-hills of the desert ; the Arab turns from the field of 
blood, and it remains in solitary horror, a melancholy monu- 
ment of Christian atrocity. The plea of expediency is of no 
avail : if it were, it would vindicate the massacres in the 
prisons of Paris, the carnage of St. Bartholomew, the burn- 
ing of Joan of Arc, or any other of the foul deeds with 
which the page of history is stained. It need not therefore 
be matter of wonder, that the Ottomans, under the disad- 
vantages of a sanguinary religion, and supposed to be 
strangers to the civilization of Western Europe, should have 
been guilty of the attempt to extirpate the Beys, who were 
supposed to disturb the exercise of their authority in Egypt. 

The Mameluke chiefs, on the expulsion of the French, 
found themselves totally unable to maintain their former 
authority. Many of them had fallen in the contest ; their 
redoubtable cavalry had perished ; and out of the whole 
militia of the province, scarcely two thousand of them could 
be mustered in arms, when the Europeans withdrew. They 
were therefore compelled to accept the offer of the Grand 
Seignior to surrender the province into the hands of the 
Osmanlis. A Pasha was established, who soon became the 
real sovereign of the country, and long contrived, by the 
regular payment of his tribute, to maintain himself undis- 
turbed in his dominions. Under his able administration order 
arose out of chaos ; life became comparatively secure ; and 
although an oppressive taxation was established, the national 
resources were prodigiously augmented. 

Thus the fine province of Egypt was again restored to its 
late masters ; but the Mameluke beys had suffered so great 
a diminution of their strength in their long and arduous 
warfare, that they were no longer able to retain their 



186 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



authority. They maintained a languid struggle with 
Mahomet Ali, appointed eventually the Pacha: they were, 
however, at last ensnared by his specious promises to enter 
the castle of Cairo, and were massacred without mercy. 
Of all this formidable race of soldiers, who for so many 
centuries governed Egypt, not a remnant remains. The 
few scanty relics who survived the treachery of Mahomet, 
pined away amid the heats of Dongola. Egypt, therefore, 
has gained nothing as a country, from the extraordinary 
invasion which has been narrated, but the overthrow of the 
anarchical tyranny of the Mamelukes, and the revival of the 
despotism of the Ottoman yoke. A powerful government 
was ultimately established on the banks of the Nile by the 
crafty and sagacious Mahomet Ali, which in the end crushed 
the Wahabites in Arabia, extended itself over Syria as far 
as the denies of Mount Taurus, and was only prevented by 
the intervention of France and Russia from utterly over- 
throwing the dominion of the Ottomans. 

We shall now proceed to the narration of events of a 
more domestic nature, but scarcely of a less important 
character as regards the future stability of the Ottoman 
throne. 

The soldiers attached to the new discipline of Hassan 
Pasha, returned to the capital, loaded with honours for 
their heroic defence of Acre against the desperate assaults 
of the French, and their success became a prevalent and 
powerful motive with the Sultan to proceed with his favour- 
ite measures of re-organizing his military forces ; desires 
which, however laudable, worked, together with other un- 
fortunate coincidences, to accomplish his ruin. The inha- 
bitants generally received the new troops with joy and 
enthusiasm, who compared their valour and good conduct 
with the shameful cowardice of the forces engaged in the 
battles of Aboukir, Mount Tabor, and of Nazareth. The 
Sultan resolved to take advantage of the public enthusiasm, 
and to establish a new and independent well-disciplined 
corps, paid from a separate treasury. The project was 
violently opposed by the Ulema and the Janizaries. These 
being at last calmed, a festa appeared announcing to the 



SELIM III. 



187 



population of Constantinople the formation of the new 
corps. The ordinance limited the number of the new 
corps, denominated Nizam-gedit, to twelve thousand men. 
Handsome barracks were erected forthwith, near Scutari, 
in Asia, on the site of the ancient Seraglio of Chalcedon, 
and also in Europe, near Sevend Tchiflik, which was sup- 
plied with exercising ground, shaded on every side by rows 
of limes; a marble kiosk was erected for the reception of 
the Sultan ; also a mosque with baths, fountains, and reser- 
voirs ; a spacious saloon ; a refectory ; a powder magazine ; 
and rows of shops for armourers and cutlers. 

It was not long ere the new corps was enabled to prove 
its merit. During 1803 and 1804 numerous parties of 
robbers, upheld by the disturbed state of the provinces, 
overran Bulgaria and Koumelia, who retreated with impu- 
nity when danger approached, into the recesses of the 
mountains of Bosnia and Albania. The local authorities 
were totally unable to stem these disorders. The Sultan, 
therefore, despatched against these bands four of the newly 
disciplined regiments, who completely extirpated the rob- 
bers; and after a series of brilliant skirmishes, put an end 
to the devastations which overran the fine plains of Thrace 
and of Mcesia. The Janizaries, however, were enabled to 
impose on the public mind, and the corps was treated with 
hate instead of gratitude by the very provinces which it 
had served ; but the Sultan and his ministers bestowed on 
the soldiers a liberal recompense. 

The Sultan, in March 1805, having resolved to increase 
the new corps by a species of conscription, issued a mandate 
desiring a levy to be made among the Janizaries, between 
the age of twenty and twenty-five years, and that the picked 
men should be incorporated with the Nizam-gedit. This 
measure caused the greatest excitement at Adrianople and 
throughout the empire, and after a series of troubles and 
dangers, it was suspended. 

During these circumstances, General Sebastiani arrived 
at Constantinople as the representative of Napoleon. His 
celebrated tour in the Levant furnished the originating 
irritation which caused the rupture of the peace of Amiens. 

Nothing could be more embarrassing than the position of 



188 



HISTORY OP THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



the Sultan, the sad spectator of a contest of which he was 
the ostensible object and the proposed prey. The victory 
of either party menaced him with ruin ; he had to choose 
between the armies of France and the fleets of England. 
Never was a sovereign so situated between two negotiators ; 
one armed with all the power by land, the other with that 
of the sea ; both, to all appearance, able to destroy, but 
neither of them capable of protecting him against his anta- 
gonist. The measures of England, however, were well cal- 
culated to secure the alliance of Turkey, or at all events to 
detach the Porte from espousing the interests of France; but 
the execution of the measures was not equal to the design. 

By the treaty of Jassy, which terminated the war with 
Eussia, it had been agreed that the hospodars or governors 
of Wallachia and Moldavia, should not be dismissed for 
seven years; and by the supplementary treaty of 1802, it 
had been stipulated that they should not be removed with- 
out the consent of Russia, 

Napoleon, who w T as now on the eve of a war with Prussia 
and Russia, despatched General Sebastiani, a skilful diplo- 
matic agent, to Constantinople, with the view of producing 
a rupture between the Turks and Russians. For the attain- 
ment of this object it became necessary to remove the two 
hospodars wmo were in the interests of Russia, and to re 
place them by others who were known to be favourable to 
the French alliance. When the French ambassador arrived 
in the Turkish capital, in August 1806, he found matters 
extremely favourable to the attainment of these objects. 
The Sultan, in the extremity of his embarrassments, gladly 
accepted an alliance with France, whose powerful armies 
were already stationed in Dalmatia, and which promised the 
only effectual aid which could be looked for from any of the 
European nations, against his own malcontents and the en- 
croachments of Russia. The arts of Sebastiani prevailed 
over the unsuspecting Sultan. The hospodars were removed, 
and Prince Suzzo and Calliamachi, both favourable to the 
French, appointed in their room. 

This decisive step at once excited the indignation of 
Russia and England, and the British and Russian ministers 
openly threatened an immediate attack on the Turkish capi- 



SELIM III. 



189 



tal by the fleets of their respective sovereigns. The Eussian 
government refused to ratify the treaty concluded at Paris. 
Sebastiani, taking advantage of this favourable circumstance, 
represented the cause of France as identified with that of 
the Sublime Porte, and demanded that the Bosphorus should 
be closed to Kussian vessels of war, and announced that the 
continuation of the alliance with England and Russia, would 
be held as a declaration of war against the French emperor. 
The threats of the French diplomatist were successful: a 
Russian brig which presented itself at the mouth of the 
Bosphorus was denied admission, which violently irritated 
the Russian and English ambassadors. They insisted upon 
the dismissed Waiwods being forthwith reinstated in their 
possessions; and the English minister threatened that in 
the event of this request not being acceded to, a British 
fleet would enter the Dardanelles and lay the capital in ashes. 
Intimidated by this threat, and aware of the defenceless 
state of his capital, the Sultan complied with the request, 
reinstated the Waiwods, and satisfied the Russian ambassa- 
dor in all his demands. But it was too late. As soon as 
the intelligence of the dismissal of the Waiwods reached the 
Russian cabinet, an army under General Michelson was 
ordered to invade the Turkish territory. The Russian army 
accordingly entered Moldavia on the 23d November 1806. 
Notwithstanding the restoration of the Wanvods, the army 
continued to advance. Thus an opportunity was afforded 
to the Russian emperor of extending his frontiers towards 
the Danube, and of advancing his schemes of conquest in 
the direction of Constantinople. The victories of Napoleon 
in Prussia increased the French influence at the Divan; and 
the Sultan was persuaded, that as the Russian armies were 
hard pressed on the Vistula, the time had arrived when, by 
throwing his weight into the scale, he might regain those 
possessions which had been wrested from the Turkish em- 
pire during a century of previous misfortunes. But the 
Porte was far from being in a condition to ©ppose the 
Russians. Forty thousand troops overran Moldavia and 
W^allachia, and made themselves masters of all the Ottoman 
territory to the north of the Danube. At this juncture the 
cabinet of St. Petersburg became sensible of the impru- 



190 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



dence of engaging an enemy on the banks of the Danube, 
when the successes of Napoleon on the Vistula imperiously 
demanded all their forces for the defence of their own fron- 
tier. Four divisions of the army of the Danube were re- 
called to strengthen the extreme left of the army of Poland. 
It appeared, therefore, of the utmost importance to deprive 
the French emperor of the powerful co-operation which he 
was likely to derive from the Turks, whose army drew the 
attention of Russia to the southern frontier of the empire. 
The naval forces of England appeared to be w r ell calculated 
to effect this object. Instructions, therefore, were given to 
Sir John Duckworth, who was cruizing off Ferrol, to pro- 
ceed to the mouth of the Dardanelles. His orders were to 
compel the Turks, by a threat of an immediate bombard- 
ment, into a relinquishment of the French, and the adop- 
tion of the Russian and English alliance. 

The fortifications of these important straits had fallen 
into disrepair. The ramparts of the castles of Europe and 
Asia, at the narrowest part of the passage, were antiquated, 
the guns dismounted, and those which remained, although of 
enormous calibre, were little calculated to answer the rapi- 
dity and precision of a British broadside. Meantime, the 
Divan declared war against England. The religious enthu- 
siasm of the Turks was now fully awakened; but deaf to 
the remonstrances of the French ambassador, and judging 
of the future only by the past, they believed that their only 
danger lay on the side of the Danube, and thither they 
directed all their disposable troops. Nothing was done to 
repair the fortifications of the straits; meanwhile, the 
squadrons of Sir John Duckworth and Admiral Louis, con- 
sisting of seven line of battle ships, two frigates and two 
bomb- vessels, effected a junction off Tenedos. With this 
force the British admiral resolved to force the passage; and 
having taken his measures w T ith much skill, he advanced 
with his ships in single file, at moderate intervals, with a 
fair wind.. On the 19th February the fleet entered the 
Dardanelles. 

The Turks were completely taken by surprise. A desul- 
tory fire alone was opened upon the ships ; but when they 
reached the Castles of Europe and Asia, where the strait is little 



SELIM III. 



191 



more than a mile broad, a tremendous cannonade assailed 
them on both sides, and enormous balls, weighing seven and 
eight hundred-weight, began to pass through the rigging. 
But the British sailors, fearless of these unusual projectiles, 
kept up such a rapid and accurate fire on right and left, as 
the ships moved slowly and majestically through the straits, 
that the Turkish cannoneers, unaccustomed to the fire of 
modern times, and terrified at the crash of the shot on the 
battlements, took to flight. 

The increasing sound of the approaching cannonade 
gradually reached Constantinople ; and the distant light of 
the conflagration announced the destruction of the Ottoman 
fleet. A brig which with difficulty escaped the flames, had 
scarcely announced the alarming tidings at Constantinople, 
when the British fleet, with all sail set, was seen proudly 
advancing within three leagues of the Seraglio point. No 
words can adequately describe the terror which prevailed. 
The capital was defenceless; not ten guns were mounted 
on the sea batteries. The fear and consternation of the 
inhabitants were greatly increased, when a message arrived 
from the British admiral to the effect that if, in twenty-four 
hours, the demands of Britain were not acceded to, he would 
immediately bombard the city. * 

Nothing but submission appeared to the Sultan ; but the( 
genius of Sebastiani again prevailed. Sir John Duckworth, 
anxious to prevent the horrors of a bombardment, was drawn 
into a negotiation. Day after day elapsed in the mere ex- 
change of notes and diplomatic communications ; meanwhile 
the Mussulmans were indefatigably employed in organizing 
the means of defence. The Turks were roused to the 
greatest pitch of enthusiasm, men and women, Turks, Greeks 
and Armenians, forgetting for a time their religious animo- 
sities71aTT6u~red at the fortifications. The commands of 
Selim, who repeatedly visited the works, were obeyed by 
two hundred thousand men, animated by religious and 
patriotic ardour, while French engineers communicated to 
the enthusiastic and busy multitude, the inestimable advan- 
tages of scientific skill. The defences were speedily armed, 
and in six days a thousand pieces of cannon and two hun- 
dred mortars were mounted on the batteries. A hundred 



192 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



gun-boats were drawn across the mouth of the Golden 
Horn: twelve line of battle-ships within stood ready for 
action : fire-ships were prepared, and numerous furnaces 
with red-hot shot kept constantly heated to carry into the 
British fleet the conflagration with which they menaced the 
Turkish capital. 

By means of their telescopes the English officers were made 
aware of the preparations that were going forward; and 
although the direction of the wind rendered it impossible 
for them to pass the straits, nothing was done adequate to 
the emergency. Every effort, indeed, was made to bring 
the enemy to an accommodation; but the Mussulman popula- 
tion, now roused to enthusiasm, would not have permitted 
the government to have come to terms, even if they had been 
so inclined. An attack upon the city now appeared to the 
British to be hopeless. The object of the expedition had 
failed ; and it remained only to provide for the safety of 
the fleet. This, however, was no easy matter. The bat- 
teries of the Dardanelles had all been armed, and the castles 
of Europe and Asia had been strengthened, so as to render 
the passage of the straits extremely hazardous. To com- 
plete the difficulties, the wind remained fixed in the south- 
west, so as to render it totally impossible for the English 
admiral to retrace his steps. 

On the 1st March, however, a breeze having sprung up 
from the Black Sea, all sails were spread, and the fleet 
entered the Dardanelles. A heavy fire from the batteries 
immediately commenced; the headlands on either side pre- 
sented a continued line of smoke ; the roar of artillery was 
incessant ; and the enormous stone bullets threatened at one 
stroke to sink the largest vessel. One of these carried 
away, below the deck, the main mast of the Windsor Castle, 
and another entered the poop of the Standard, and killed 
and wounded sixty men. At last, the fleet cleared the 
straits and anchored off Tenedos, having sustained a loss of 
two hundred and fifty men. 

After the departure of the English fleet, all amicable re- 
lations were, of course, suspended with the Turkish govern- 
ment. The entrance to the Bosphorus was strictly blockaded, 
and the supply of the capital by water-carriage entirely cut 



SELIM III. 



193 



off. — The scarcity of provisions soon became so great that 
serious commotion took place in the capital. The Turks 
by great exertion having adequately manned their fleet, the 
Capitan Pasha ventured to advance beyond the protection 
which the forts of the Dardanelles afforded it, and to give 
battle to the Russians. The result was as might have been 
expected from a contest between a newly recruited body of 
men, and a fleet fully manned by experienced sailors. The 
Ottoman armament was totally destroyed. The Turkish 
ports were strictly blockaded by the Russian fleet, until the 
treaty of Tilsit established a short and fallacious truce be- 
tween these irreconcilable enemies. 

Before entering upon the narration of the revolutions 
which desolated the capital, and cost Selim his throne, it is 
necessary to trace the short and disastrous expedition to 
Egypt, which at this time was undertaken by Britain. 
Egypt, by the peace of Amiens, was again restored to the 
Ottoman Porte. The Mamelukes were naturally desirous of 
regaining their power, but the Porte, availing itself of the 
reduced state to which the French invasion had brought 
them, resolved to carry on a war of extermination against 
the Beys and their dependents. With this view the sale and 
introduction of Georgian and Circassian captives, by which 
the Mamelukes were continually recruited, was prohibited, 
and the Porte despatched a considerable force of Albanians 
under Mahomet Ali, the Pasha, for the purpose of prosecut- 
ing the war. The remains of the Mamelukes were com- 
pelled to fly before the arms of the Pasha, and they sought 
shelter in Upper Egypt, and finally in Dongola. All traces 
of this fierce and powerful class of soldiery eventually dis- 
appeared in the deserts of Nubia. Egypt was still eagerly 
coveted by Napoleon, and the feeble government of the 
Mussulmans afforded no security against a successful attack 
by a force far inferior to that which composed the first ex- 
pedition. The British government therefore felt anxious to 
regain possession of that important country. The English 
commanders in the Mediterranean, finding themselves in- 
volved in hostilities with the Turks, a plan was formed for 
the invasion of Egypt. The results, however, proved that 
both the plan and the execution of it were alike defective. 

N 



194 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



The land forces, not exceeding five thousand men of all arms, 
under the command of General Mackenzie, sailed from Mes- 
sina on the 6th of March 1807, and landed on the 18th. 
Alexandria capitulated ; Damietta was occupied without re- 
sistance ; and two thousand five hundred men were despatched 
to effect the reduction of Rosetta. This town commands 
one of the mouths of the Mle, and it was thought essential 
to take possession of it, with the view to the regular supply 
of provisions for Alexandria. Circumstances, however, 
showed that this precaution was altogether unnecessary. As 
immediate succour was expected from the Mamelukes, a small 
force of seven hundred men were stationed at El Hammed, 
in order to facilitate their junction with the besieging force. 
This detachment was speedily surrounded by an overwhelm- 
ing body of Turkish horse, and after a gallant resistance they 
were entirely cut off. The promised Mamelukes never made 
their appearance. The vigorous measures adopted by 
Mahomet Ali, rendered the attack upon Rosetta altogether 
abortive. Upwards of a thousand British fell in the assault. 
Disaffection reached Alexandria ; and weary of insidious foes 
and treacherous friends, the English renounced their pro- 
ject, and capitulated for the evacuation of Egypt. It is al- 
most certain that if, instead of five thousand, fifteen thousand 
men had formed the expedition, Egypt might have been a 
rich and important British province, the value of which, 
every day since, has become more apparent. 

The Capitan Pasha, elated that the English had failed in 
their enterprise, and fancying that some share of the honour 
of their defeat belonged to himself, sailed into the Mediter- 
ranean and attacked the Russian fleet. The fleets were well 
matched, and the contest was maintained on both sides with 
the greatest fury. Although the Turkish admiral was de- 
feated, yet the Russian squadron suffered so severely, that it 
set sail to the Ionian Isles, whence it returned no more to 
the iEgean Sea. 

Desirous to profit by the victories of Napoleon in the 
north, the Porte resolved to attempt the expulsion of the 
Russians from the principalities, and an extraordinary levy 
was called in all her pashaliks. The Bosniacks, the Servians, 
and the levies of Roumelia, were summoned to the entrenched 



SELIM III. 



195 



camp of Shumla, and thither were also directed the contin- 
gents of the Pashas of Asia. Bairakder, the most energetic 
of the Ottoman leaders, and highly esteemed by Selim, was 
advanced to the dignity of Yizier or Pasha of three tails. 

The Mufti, whose enlightened prudence and regard for 
the Sultan, and whose services at this juncture were inesti- 
mable, died. The lamentable consequences which occurred, 
soon evinced what a calamity his decease became to the 
whole Ottoman empire ; and the Sultan, who had cherished 
him as a friend, felt the whole extent of his loss. 

The expedition of Sir John Duckworth had a powerful 
effect in rousing the Mahometan spirit in the empire ; but a 
tragical event, which soon after ensued, prostrated its reviv- 
ing strength, and exposed the empire, all but defenceless, to 
the blows of the enemy. 

It appeared evident to Sultan Selim, as has already been 
mentioned, that the real remedy for the inveterate weak- 
ness of the Ottoman empire, and for the maintenance of the 
independence of Turkey, was the gradual introduction of the 
civil and military institutions of Christendom. The J anizaries, 
who had contrived to engross almost all the official- situa- 
tions in the empire, began to feel that their influence might 
suffer by the establishment of a corps of Nizam-Jecleed, or 
new troops, disciplined in the European method, and lodged 
in the principal barracks of Constantinople. The powerful 
body of the Ulemas, or priesthood, began to preach insurrec- 
tion, upon the ground of the Sultan aiming at the overthrow 
of the fundamental institutions of the Koran and the empire ; 
and a wide-spread conspiracy was formed among the dis- 
affected, for the destruction of the reforming Sultan and his 
minister Mahomud. 

Mahomud was the first victim. The guards of the Sultan 
rescued him from the hands of the conspirators, but it was 
only to meet death on the Asiatic coast, when he disem- 
barked from a boat into which he had thrown himself to 
escape from their fury. The~Ulemas, the Janizaries, and 
the Yamacks all declared against the Sultan ; the heads of 
the principal persons in Constantinople were successively 
brought by the ferocious bands of assassins to the head 
quarters of the insurgents ; the Sultan himself only purchased 



196 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 



a respite by delivering up to their fury the Bostandji-Bashi. 
After two days of bloodshed and confusion, Selim was 
formally dethroned by the Grand Mufti, and his nephew, 
Mustapha, placed on the throne. Immediately the cannon 
of the castle announced a new reign, and Selim, shut up in 
a dungeon, was soon as completely forgotten as if he had 
never existed. Selim resigned into the hands of Mustapha, 
with becoming dignity, that power which he had ever exer- 
cised for the good of his subjects, and he never deserved 
more highly of them than at this moment. Never did any 
revolution more strikingly evince the bigotry and blindness 
of a populace. 



MUSTAPHA IV. 

This prince was thirty years old w T hen he was placed on 
the throne. Of a feeble character, and unacquainted with 
human nature, he was very ill calculated to contend with 
the difficult circumstances which surrounded him. The re- 
volution which elevated Mustapha had ostensibly been con- 
ducted by the Yamacks. They had been able, like many 
other clamorous bodies, to destroy, but to repair or consoli- 
date was beyond their reach. 

This revolution was as successful in the capital as it was 
rapid ; but the lingering fidelity of the troops on the Danube, 
paved the way for a second revolution. Mustapha, frivolous, 
sensual, and apathetic, was entirely unfit to direct the tem- 
pest which had raised him to the throne. The chiefs who 
headed the revolt were jealous of each other, and their com- 
mon rapacity rendered them alike an object of horror to the 
people. When the capital was thus agitated by the cruelty 
and extortion of the revolutionists, Mustapha Bairakdar, the 
Pasha of Boustchouk, was secretly collecting the disaffected, 
and fomenting a counter-revolution. 

Selecting a choice body of four thousand cavalry and 
twelve thousand infantry, Bairakdar crossed the Balkan to 
Constantinople. At the entrance of the capital, Bairakdar 
made known his conditions to Sultan Mustapha, and de- 
manded that he should exile the Grand Mufti, and disband 



MAHMOUD II. 



197 



the Yamacks. To these conditions, the Sultan at once 
agreed. But the undaunted Pasha had deeper designs. 
Learning that the Grand Seignior had gone to pass the day 
with the ladies of his harem at one of his kiosks, or country 
residences, Bairakdar put himself at the head of a chosen 
body of troops, and preceded by the sacred standard of the 
Sandjak-ScherifF, which he had violently torn from the 
hands of the Grand Vizier, marched to the Seraglio to 
dethrone the reigning Sultan, and to restore the captive 
Selim. The outer gate of the palace flew open at the sight 
of the standard of the prophet; but the bostandjis at the 
inner gates opposed so firm a resistance, that time was 
gained to enable the Sultan to return by a back way and 
to. regain his private apartments. Meanwhile Bairakdar 
demanded that Selim should instantly be restored and 
seated on the throne. Mustapha's adherents feigned a 
compliance ; but the Sultan himself gave orders that Selim 
should be strangled in prison. The sanguinary order was 
immediately executed; and the dead body of Selim thrown 
into the court occupied by Bairakdar's troops. In a trans- 
port of rage, Bairakdar ordered the officers of the Seraglio 
to be brought before him and instantly executed. Sultan 
Mustapha was dethroned, and shut up in the same prison in 
which Selim had just been strangled, and his younger 
brother Mahmoud, the last of the royal and sacred race, put 
upon the throne. 



MAHMOUD II. 

The bloody catastrophe which elevated Mahmoud to the 
sceptre did not terminate these revolutions: fortune was 
not yet weary of exhibiting on this dark stage, the insta- 
bility of human affairs. For some months the machine 
of government, under Bairakdar, who, as a reward for 
his courage and fidelity, was created Grand Yizier, went 
on smoothly. Sultan Mahmoud, who was no less determined 
to reform the national institutions than Selim had been, 
united to this disposition an inflexibility of character that 
rendered him incomparably more formidable; and the great 



198 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



capacity of the Grand Vizier rendered it probable that their 
projects would soon be carried into execution. The Ulemas, 
the Mufti, and the leaders of the disaffected, again organized 
an insurrection, which was favoured by the withdrawal of a 
large portion of the army which had overthrown Mustapha, 
from the capital, to make head against the Russians on the 
Danube, and it broke out in the middle of November 1808. 
The Janizaries proved victorious. A furious multitude of 
these haughty praetorians surrounded the barracks of the 
new troops, set fire to them, and several hundreds were 
consumed in the conflagration. Another body directed 
their steps to the palace of the Grand Vizier, and a third to 
the Seraglio. Four thousand guards defended the Sultan ; 
but the few faithful guards of the Grand Vizier were driven 
into his palace, to which the savage multitude immediately 
set fire. Bairakdar, to shorten his sufferings, himself set 
fire to a powder magazine, who with his whole household 
was blown into the air. In the midst of these scenes of 
horror, the Sultan ordered his troops from the Seraglio, and 
from the adjoining forts of the Bosphorus, to enter the city, 
and Constantinople immediately became the theatre of 
general bloodshed, massacre, and conflagration. At length, 
after forty-eight hours of continued combat, during which 
men, women, and children perished alike by the sword and 
by the flames, the party of the Janizaries prevailed, and the 
Sultan, who had previously strangled his rival, Mustapha, 
in prison, purchased peace by the sacrifice of all his minis- 
ters who were favourable to the new order of things. 
Mahmoud was the last of the race of Othman, and with his 
existence the fate of the empire was thought to be wound 
up ; and even in these moments of victorious insurrection, 
the superstitious attachment to the sacred race was apparent. 
He became the object of veneration even by the rebels ; and 
he reigned in safety with despotic power, by the support of 
the very faction who would, in all probability, have con- 
signed him to a dungeon, or perhaps to death, had Mus- 
tapha, or any other of the race of Othman, survived, whom 
the rebels could have elevated to the throne. 

During these sanguinary tumults, the great bulk of the 
people remained in passive indifference. They submitted 



MAHMOUD II. 



199 



in silence to a power which they could not resist, and 
avoided a contest in which they had no direct interest; and 
thus fanaticism and tyranny produced the same results in 
Turkey, whether in the utter prostration of the general 
sentiment of the nation, or in the cruelties and atrocities of 
the victorious bands, as infidelity and democracy had done 
in the west of Europe. — The contest lay directly between 
the Ulemas, the Mufti, and the Janizaries, on one side, 
and the court, the officers of state, and the new soldiers on 
the other ; and the repeated convulsions of which they alone 
had been the cause, proved highly injurious to the Ottomans, 
even in the field of diplomacy. 

Napoleon, no doubt, would have discovered other pre- 
texts for abandoning Turkey, and arranging its partition, 
and would without any hesitation, and without assigning 
any reason, have entered into the treaty of Tilsit with the 
Emperor Alexander. But in the present circumstances, he 
pretended that his alliance was only with Sultan Selim: 
that he was under no engagements with the ferocious rabble 
who had overthrown his government and consigned him to 
a dungeon : that, in short, the Turks were a horde of bar- 
barians who could be no longer tolerated in Europe. It 
was one of the conditions, accordingly, of the treaty of 
Tilsit, that France should offer its mediation to effect an 
adjustment of the differences between Eussia and the Su- 
blime Porte ; and that in the event of the latter declining 
the terms arranged between Alexander and Napoleon, she 
was to be jointly attacked by them both. Russia was to be 
at liberty to annex Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bulgaria to 
her empire ; while Macedonia, Thrace, Greece, and the 
islands of the Archipelago, were allotted to France. Thus, 
by this shameful desertion of his ally, did Napoleon requite 
the Turks for the fidelity with which they stood by his side 
when the British squadron threatened the destruction of 
Constantinople, and when his own army was involved in a 
hazardous conflict with Russia on the Vistula. 

No sooner, therefore, had the ambition of Russia been 
satisfied in the north, with the annexation of Finland, than 
the Czar turned his ambitious eyes to the Turkish domi- 
nions. The army on the Danube was reinforced by sixty 



200 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



battalions, and in March 1809, orders were sent to its com- 
mander, Prince Prosorowsky, to cross that river and carry 
the war with vigour into the heart of the Turkish territory. 

The army under the command of the Kussian general 
was a very powerful one, presenting a total of eighty thou- 
sand infantry and twenty-five thousand horse. The Turks, 
severely weakened by internal dissension, and the defection 
of Czerny George, the Pasha of Servia, had no force to op- 
pose them, capable of keeping the field. The Kussians, 
however, were far from reaping that benefit from the dis- 
tractions of the Ottoman empire and their own surpassing 
strength which might have been anticipated. The Turks 
confined themselves to throwing strong garrisons into the 
fortresses on the Danube, and directing their principal 
forces against Servia, where their undisciplined militia were 
more likely to meet with antagonists over whom they had a 
chance of prevailing. The plan proved successful. Al- 
though the Ottomans sustained considerable reverses, it was 
evident that unless a powerful diversion was made on the 
lower Danube, the campaign would terminate to the advan- 
tage of the Turks. 

A circumstance, apart altogether from the indomitable 
spirit of resistance which the Turks have invariably mani- 
fested, has contributed, perhaps more than any other, to 
prolong the existence of the Turkish empire. The desert 
and pestilential plains forming the lower part of the basin of 
the Danube, have always formed the theatre of war between 
the Ottomans and the Christian powers. The flat parts of 
Wallachia and Moldavia, as well as of Northern Bulgaria, 
are exceedingly unhealthy, especially in the autumnal 
months. Their low situation exposes them to frequent in- 
undations, and deluges of wet in the winter and early part 
of the season. During the great heats and long drought of 
summer, the marshes and plains are dried up, which forms 
the source of marsh miasmata of the most fatal kind. In 
the autumn vegetation is withered; pasture for cavalry dis- 
appears ; the earth, parched and hardened, cracks in several 
places, and pestilential effluvia spread with the exhalations 
drawn up by the burning sun. This malaria never fails to 
occasion greater ravages than the sword of the enemy. The 



MAHMOUD II. 



20 L 



truth of this statement has been fatally exemplified in the 
Eussian army during the present war. Were the northern 
provinces of Turkey traversed by roads passable for wheel 
carriages, it might be possible for an army to reach the foot 
of the Balkans early in the season; but the difficulty of 
dragging the artillery and waggons over several hundred 
miles of uncultivated plains, where there are no provisions, 
are such as to render it difficult to reach the northern face 
of the mountains before the great heats have commenced. 
The strength of Shumla, the courage of the inhabitants of 
the Balkan, and the pestilential gales of autumn, have 
hitherto arrested the invaders. Thus Turkey has found 
that security in the desolation, which it probably would not 
have done in the prosperity, of its empire. 

Independent, however, of these obstacles, Turkey is de- 
fended on its northern frontier by the great barrier of the 
line of the Danube. Had the Ottomans possessed the mili- 
tary skill and enterprise of the French, it might have been 
rendered as impervious as the Bhine to hostile invasion. 
Brahilow, Griurgevo, Silistria, Boustchouk, Hirsova and 
Widdin, besides several other fortresses of less note, consti- 
tute this formidable line of defence. An invading army 
from the north finds itself compelled to secure one or more 
of these barrier fortresses, before it ventures to cross the 
Danube. These fortifications cannot stand a comparison 
with the modern works of Vauban and Cohorn ; but of late 
years, however, they have been very much improved. 

The first enterprise of Prosorowsky was against Giur- 
gevo, near the mouth of the Danube. Ignorant of the 
enemy with whom he had to deal, or miscalculating the 
prowess of his own troops, he was repulsed with the loss of 
two thousand men. He invested Brahilow on the right 
bank of the river, and was compelled to retreat with the 
loss of seven thousand men. Elated with success, the 
Grand Vizier ventured to cross the Danube, and began to 
ravage the plains of Moldavia. Meanwhile Prosorowsky 
died, and was succeeded by Bagrathion, who, after many 
reverses, succeeded in throwing a radiance over the conclu- 
sion of the campaign, by the reduction of Brahilow, which 
surrendered by capitulation from want of provisions in the 



202 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



end of November. This success gave the Eussians the ad- 
vantage of a solid fortress, which secured the passage of 
the Danube. 

Eussia had yet gained nothing by the favourable oppor- 
tunity afforded them by the conclusion of the peace with 
Napoleon. In the beginning of 1810, however, an imperial 
ukase appeared, formally annexing Moldavia and Wallachia 
to the Eussian empire, and declaring the Danube the 
southern European boundary of their dominions. This 
step was followed by extensive military preparations. The 
army on the Danube was augmented to a hundred and ten 
thousand men, of which thirty thousand were cavalry, and 
Bagrathion was replaced by Kamenskoi, a general possess- 
ing little experience in Turkish warfare. Desirous to sig- 
nalize the commencement of the campaign by decisive suc- 
cess, Kamenskoi divided his troops into two parts ; the right 
was to lay siege to Silistria and Eoustchouk, so as to 
become master of the whole line of the Danube, while with 
the left he himself advanced by Hirsova to Shumla. 
During the winter a tacit armistice, attended by very 
singular consequences, prevailed between the two armies. 
The continental system of Napoleon, then in full activity in 
northern Europe, had almost totally extinguished that mer- 
cantile intercourse which arises out of the wants, and grows 
with the happiness of mankind. English goods to an enor- 
mous amount were conveyed up the Danube, paid duties to 
the Pasha of Widdin, and were carried through the Eothen- 
bourg on men's heads and horses' backs into Hungary, and 
thence through the whole of Germany. The immense 
profits realized enabled the merchants to bribe the authori- 
ties in all the different countries through which they passed, 
to wink at the transit of goods, in direct violation of the 
engagements of their respective sovereigns. The immense 
importance of the free navigation of the Danube, receives 
full confirmation, if need be, from the very circumstance of 
the wants of mankind being at least partially supplied 
through this channel, when the most powerful monarch that 
ever existed in Europe, flattered himself that he had closed 
every inlet to the Continent against the introduction of 
English manufactures. 



MAHMOUD II. 



203 



The right wing of the Russian army crossed the Danube 
in the middle of March, between Roustchouk andWiddin; 
and in the middle of May the left wing entered upon the 
campaign, and advanced to Bazarjik, which was carried by 
assault in the beginning of June.- Meanwhile, Karayusuf 
Pasha, well known by his defence of Acre, accumulated a 
formidable force in the intrenched camp of Shumla. 

The operations of Langeron on the lower Danube proved 
entirely successful. Silistria surrendered by capitulation: 
Turtoukai and Rasgrad yielded soon after to the terrors 
of a bombardment. The commander-in-chief advanced to- 
wards Shumla, and he appeared, accordingly, on the 22d 
June, with forty thousand men in front of that celebrated 
stronghold. 

Shumla, in a war with Russia, is a fortress of the high- 
est importance. The town is considerable, and is situated on 
the northern slope of the Balkan, where the great road from 
Belgrade and Bucharest to Constantinople begins to ascend 
the slope of the mountains. The town ' contains thirty 
thousand inhabitants : a clear torrent descending through 
its centre, secures both them and the inmates of the camp 
with an ample supply of water, and provisions are easily 
introduced from the rear. The intrenched camp extends 
beyond the town, which cannot be said to be regularly 
fortified, and it is overhung in the rear, by a succession of 
eminences which rise one above another, till they are lost 
in the woody thickets of Mount Hsemus. The garrison of 
Shumla consisted of thirty thousand men; and the defender 
of Acre had employed months in clearing out the ditches 
and strengthening the ramparts, which were principally 
built with clay. The redoubts were placed merely on the 
commanding points, leaving often a space of several hundred 
yards broad, without any defence ; yet in the hands of the 
Turks, they constituted a most efficient barrier. 

The attack upon this camp was fierce and bloody, and 
after several weeks spent in fruitless efforts, Kamenskoi was 
obliged to renounce the enterprise. Thirty thousand men 
were left to continue a distant blockade, and himself has- 
tened with twelve thousand choice troops to co-operate in 
the siege of Roustchouk. 



204 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



This fortress is a Turkish town on the Danube, which con- 
tained at the time of the siege, about thirty thousand inhabit- 
ants. Its defences consisted of a single rampart and wet ditch, 
and did not possess more powerful means of resistance than 
Brahilow, nor so much as Silistria. But the resources of 
Hassan Pasha, a man of cool judgment and invincible re- 
solution, were better than either walls or ditches. The gar- 
rison consisted only of seven thousand men; but the ex- 
ample of Hassan had imparted a spirit of enthusiasm to 
the whole population capable of bearing arms, which formed 
a body of irregular defenders, equal in number to the 
garrison. The besieging force under Kamenskoi was raised 
to above twenty thousand combatants; and the clergy, as 
well as their chief, joined in their efforts to animate the 
soldiers. The rampart was in part ruined when the cannon 
of the enemy opened upon the fortress. Hassan had not 
returned a shot ; and the younger Kussian soldiers, nattered 
themselves that very little resistance was to be anticipated. 
During the preceding night a vehement fire had been kept 
up from all the batteries, and at daybreak the troops ad- 
vanced to the attack in five massive columns, one of which 
was charged with forcing the breach, while the others were 
to mount the rampart by escalade. It was soon discovered 
that the Pasha's previous silence had arisen neither from 
terror nor inattention. The Muscovites steadily advanced, 
and when they reached the foot of the scarp, from every 
roof, window, and loophole a dreadful fire issued upon the 
assailants ; the troops, staggered by the severity of the fire, 
recoiled from the foot of the rampart ; and from the opposite 
side of the fosse they exchanged musket -shots with their 
visible and invisible antagonists. . At noon the Turkish 
banner still waved on all the minarets ; and it was not till 
six at night that Kamenskoi sounded a retreat, leaving eight 
thousand killed and wounded in the ditch and around the 
walls of the fortress. Four thousand of the unfortunate 
Muscovites were immediately decapitated by their valiant 
but ruthless enemies. The Kussians soon afterwards raised 
the investment of Shumla, but they still kept their ground 
before the fortresses on the north bank of the Danube. 

The Turks, now resolved to attempt the deliverance of 



MAHMOUD II. 



205 



Roustchouk, ' and Beglerbeg who had recently been ap- 
pointed Seraskier, or commander-in-chief of his province, 
was ordered by the Divan to assemble a force for that pur- 
pose. Thirty thousand men, for the most part undisciplined 
militia, were forthwith concentrated on the river Jantra, 
about forty miles from the fortress. Sensible that these 
troops would be wholly unable to withstand the Russian 
army in the open field, Beglerbeg took post on the river 
near Battin, and immediately proceeded to fortify his camp. 
The situation was well selected, being a half deserted plain 
intersected by several rocky ravines, at the confluence of 
the Jantra and the Danube, with a few fruit-trees scattered 
over its surface, and watered on two sides by these ample 
streams. The neck of land by which access could be ob- 
tained to the camp, was strengthened by two redoubts, and 
covered in the interval between them, with thick bushes 
and underwood. Nevertheless, Kamenskoi, desirous to wipe 
off the disgrace of the repulse at Roustchouk, resolved to 
hazard an attack. Having previously strengthened the 
besieging force before Roustchouk, the general-in-chief, 
following the right bank of the river, appeared in front of 
the Turkish intrenchments, at the head of eighteen thousand 
men. Notwithstanding the superiority of the Russians, 
especially in artillery, of which they had a hundred pieces, 
it was deemed unsafe to hazard an attack in front, at least 
unless strongly supported by simultaneous operations on 
either flank. The enemy, it was soon discovered, had two 
intrenched camps, the works of which mutually supported 
each other, and their guns were so disposed as to command, 
in rear, the navigation of the Danube, on which they had 
also a powerful flotilla destined for the relief of Roustchouk. 
The only practicable way of reaching the camp that re- 
mained, was by an attack in flank, where the ravine, though 
steep and rugged, was practicable for infantry. Meanwhile, 
strong reinforcements were ordered up from Silistria, and 
Woiroff having come up with five thousand men, the grand 
attack was fixed for the 7th September. 

The battle commenced at daybreak. The cavalry ad- 
vanced to within cannon-shot of the principal camp; and 
another column, composed of infantry, moved up in squares 



206 



niSTOKY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



to the front of the lesser ones, while KulnefF .crossed the 
ravine, and advanced upon the western defence of the Turk- 
ish position. Kamenskoi himself, with the centre, stormed 
the principal heights, which commanded one of the in- 
trenched camps, and although with great loss, he gained 
considerable advantages. The attack failed on both flanks, 
upon which the Eussians desisted from further attempts for 
the night. 

The Turkish camp, however, was now completely sur- 
rounded by the Muscovite troops, and many of the imperial 
generals seeing the desperate manner in which the Turks 
had defended themselves on the preceding day, strongly ad- 
vised the commander-in-chief to withdraw KulnefFs division, 
so as to leave the Turks a retreat up the course of the 
Danube. The Turks, on their part, elated by their success, 
gave way to every demonstration of joy ; and in sight of 
both armies, went through the barbarous operation of de- 
capitating the Russians who had been left on the field. " This 
practice," the Prince of Ligne remarks, " was more formi- 
dable in appearance than reality ; for it could do no harm to 
the dead ; it was often a relief to the wounded ; and it was 
rather an advantage to the unhurt, as it left them no chance 
of escape but in victory." 

Kamenskoi was resolute ; orders were given to renew 
the attack at daybreak. KulnefF was put under arrest, in 
consequence of a violent altercation with the general, and 
the command of his troops was given to Subanejef. The 
attack of Subanejef was entirely successful, and his troops 
made their way into the camp to which they were opposed. 
Suddenly assembling the whole of his cavalry and the brav- 
est of his infantry, Muktar Pasha abandoned his camp and 
all its contents, poured out by one of the gates like a torrent, 
and making straight across the plateau, sought the shelter of 
the ravine o'n the right. This unlooked-for deluge had well 
nigh swept away Kamenskoi himself ; and as the standard of 
Mahomet still floated on the intrenchments, the tumult was 
deemed only a partial sally from the works. But the fire 
from the ramparts gradually died away ; the standards alone 
remained on the summit. The Eussians poured with loud 
shouts into the enclosure, and with savage revenge, put all 



MAHMOUD II. 



207 



they still found within to the sword. The trophies of the 
victory were the principal camp of the Ottomans, with four- 
teen guns and two hundred standards, the whole flotilla 
which lay on the Danube laden with provisions and ammu- 
nition, with five thousand prisoners, among whom was Achmet 
Pasha the second in command. The immediate consequences 
of this victory were the capture of Sistova, and the sur- 
render of Roustchouk, from which the Pasha was permitted to 
retire with his whole troops and the inhabitants, leaving the 
walls, cannon, standards, and military stores to the Russians. 
Giurgevo immediately capitulated on the same favourable 
terms. The Russians were thus masters of the important 
strongholds on the Danube, but the obstinate resistance of 
the Turks had entirely ruined their designs. The rainy 
season had set in ; and as the evacuation of Roustchouk 
took nearly a month, the Russians were not entirely in, pos- 
session of the fortress till the end of October. # Even then 
they got nothing but half ruined walls, and a deserted town ; 
only five hundred of the lowest of the people were found 
within its blood-stained ramparts. 

Kamenskoi, disquieted at the prolonged resistance of 
Roustchouk, and the intelligence of great preparations at 
Constantinople, despatched orders to General St. Priest, in 
command at Sistova, to destroy that town, and to hasten with 
all his forces to the main army. This barbarous order, dic- 
tated in a moment of groundless alarm, was faithfully exe- 
cuted. Sistova was reduced to a heap of ruins ; its inhabi- 
tants, twenty thousand in number, were transported to the 
opposite side of the Danube ; the damp and miserable huts in 
which they were lodged scarcely serving to shelter them 
from the drenching rains. Great flocks of wild pigeons 
settled in the ruins of this once flourishing town ; and its 
beautiful environs, composed of vine-clad hills, intermingled 
w r ith roses, were soon choked by weeds, and tenanted only 
by foxes from the neighbouring solitudes. Nicopolis capitu- 
lated, and the Russians recrossed the Danube, and took up 
their winter quarters in Moldavia and Wallachia. Nico- 
polis and Silistria were blown up ; Roustchouk was put in a 
respectable posture of defence. Meanwhile Kamenskoi 
died, and was succeeded by General KutusofF. 



208 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



In the year 1811, the relations between the cabinet of St. 
Petersburg and that of the Tuileries became so menacing, 
that the Emperor Alexander gave orders for five divisions of 
the army to break up from their winter quarters on the 
Danube, and direct their march to Poland and the Vistula, 
and the campaign of 1811 was, of necessity, laid out upon 
a defensive plan merely. Encouraged by this great diminu- 
tion in the strength of their enemies, the Turkish govern- 
ment made the most vigorous efforts for the prosecution of 
the war. Achmet Pasha commanded the main army, which 
numbered 60,000 combatants, with seventy-eight pieces of 
artillery, while at the same time a corps of 20,000 marched 
towards Widdin, and nearly the same number to the right 
to observe Silistria, Nicopolis, and Turtoukai. 

It affords a strong proof of the native vigour which, de- 
spite the innumerable errors of their political institutions, 
animated the Turkish empire, that they were capable, in the 
third year of the war, and without any external aid, of 
putting forth such formidable forces. Their approach 
immediately made KutusofF concentrate his troops, and 
he himself crossed the Danube, and took post in front 
of Roustchouk. A fiercely contested battle ensued, during 
which the victory was long doubtful. Four regiments 
of Russians were almost destroyed by the Ottoman horse- 
men, who deeming the victory won, dashed through the 
intervals of the squares, disregarding the fire which as- 
sailed them on either flank, and penetrated even as far as 
the gardens of the town : all seemed lost ; but the gallant 
horsemen, having no aid from foot soldiers, were unable to 
establish themselves in the fortress. Grape-shot from the 
ramparts shook their ranks, and they were compelled to re- 
treat through the Russian squares, who again poured in a 
deadly volley on either side of the now diminished squadrons. 
The Turks retired to their intrenched camp, and Kutusoff 
withdrew within the walls of Roustchouk, with the loss of 
three thousand men. The Turks were weakened by at least 
an equal number. 

KutusofF, preferring a campaign in the open field, abandoned 
to his antagonist the object of so much bloodshed ; and 
with true Russian barbarity burnt the town, and crossed 



MAHMOUD II. 



209 



over entirely to the left bank of the river. The Turkish 
army, amidst the pomp of oriental power, and the clang of 
military instruments, again took possession of the ramparts. 
The standards of Mahomet were displayed from the battle- 
ments, the beautiful vineyards in the environs were cleared 
out and dressed by the hands of the owners, and, contrary 
to the order of things for above a century, the Crescent 
appeared triumphant over the Cross. 

Overjoyed at his success, the Grand Vizier determined to 
cross the Danube and to expel the Eussians from the Turkish 
territory. He succeeded in deceiving the Eussian general 
as to the real point he intended to pass the river, and in a 
few days he dexterously effected the passage, with thirty 
thousand men, and fifty pieces of cannon, and they estab- 
lished themselves in a large intrenched camp. At the same 
time, an equal force on the right bank, under the Grand 
Vizier in person, had erected a sort of temporary city in 
which his tent was decked out with unusual splendour. 

Kutusoff resolved to hazard an expedition to the opposite 
bank, in order, if possible, to dislodge the enemy from the 
ground whence the camp was supplied with provisions. 
This operation was intrusted to General Markoff, who suc- 
ceeded in getting over ten battalions and five hundred horse, 
and he proceeded instantly to attack the Turkish camp on 
the right bank. The surprise was complete : the Turks 
made scarcely any resistance. The magnificent tent of the 
Grand Vizier, the whole baggage and stores of the army, an 
immense number of horses, camels and carriages, and pro- 
digious booty, fell into the hands of the victors, who lost 
but eight, men in this felicitous attack. Markoff, however, 
without casting a thought on the booty, seized the Turkish 
batteries, which he turned against the enemy on the other 
side, where the remainder of the Eussian army, drawn up in 
battle array, witnessed his triumph. Eighty pieces of 
cannon thundered against the Ottoman camp ; and mean- 
while the Grand Vizier in vain proposed an armistice with 
a view to negotiations for peace. Had Kutusoff taken ad- 
vantage of the enthusiasm of the moment, and the conster- 
nation of the enemy, and instantly led his troops to the at- 
tack of the intrenched camp on the left bank, there can be 

o 



210 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



little doubt that it would have been carried, and perhaps the 
whole Turkish army destroyed. But KutusofF, who was 
essentially cunning and cautious, did not possess the intre- 
pidity and daring for this bold measure. The circumstances 
of the Turks were now wholly desperate. Two hundred 
pieces of cannon on both sides of the Danube kept up an 
incessant fire on them night and day. A strong flotilla 
above and below precluded all access or escape by water ; a 
formidable semicircle of redoubts with batteries in their 
interstices, enclosed them on the land side ; their provisions 
were soon exhausted ; forage there was none for the horses ; 
their tents were burned for fuel ; and the troops, during the 
damp nights of autumn, lay on the open ground, exposed to 
a ceaseless tempest of shot. Yet all these accumulated 
horrors could not shake the firm mind of the Turkish gene- 
ral. He repeatedly refused most advantageous offers of 
capitulation ; and after having consumed his last horse, he 
was forming the audacious project of cutting his way by a 
sudden irruption through the Eussian left, and intrenching 
himself opposite to Eoustchouk, and under the shelter of its 
guns, when a convention concluded at Giurgevo, in the end 
of October, with a view to a peace between the two powers, 
put an end to the miseries and saved the honour of these 
brave men. 

When the Eussians entered the blood-stained intrench- 
ments, the interior told how dreadful had been the sufferings 
of the heroic defenders. The ground was strewn with the 
dead bodies of men and horses, which the survivors had not 
possessed sufficient strength to inter ; limbs struck off by 
cannon-shot, broken arms, overturned gun-carriages, and 
putrid corpses lay on all sides ; the earth, in many places, 
was even ploughed up by the shot ; but the survivors, though 
pale and emaciated, preserved their calm and resolute 
air. Five thousand, amidst the respect of their enemies, de- 
livered up their arms, with fifty-one guns ; above twelve 
thousand had perished by disease or the sword, since the 
cannonade commenced. 

Thus concluded the operations of the campaign, in 
w T hich both parties had made prodigious efforts, and 
neither had gained decisive success. The Eussians, well 



MAHMOUD II. 



211 



aware of the formidable contest with Napoleon which was 
impending over them, were anxious at any price to termi- 
nate the hostilities on the Danube, and to bring Kutu- 
sofFs forces to the assistance of the armies on the Nie- 
men. Every attempt was made by the French to retain the 
Turks in hostilities with Eussia ; but the concurring testi- 
mony of the ambassadors who assisted at the conferences, 
removed all doubts from the minds of the Turkish ministers, 
as to the imminent danger to which the empire would be ex- 
posed, should Napoleon obtain the same supremacy in East- 
ern which he had long enjoyed in Western Europe. The 
English made them acquainted with the secret articles of the 
treaty of Tilsit, by which the French Emperor not only 
agreed to the entire partition of their European dominions, 
Constantinople and Koumelia excepted, but had actually 
stipulated for the largest shares, viz., Greece, the islands of 
the Archipelago, Albania, and Macedonia to himself. Russia, 
a party to that scheme of plunder, revealed them fully to the 
Turkish ambassadors. Austria disclosed the offer made to 
her of Servia and Bosnia, while Czerny George, alarmed at 
the clear proofs which had been adduced of the intention to 
dethrone him in the scramble, gave ample details of the in- 
quiries and surveys made by Marshal Marmont immediately 
after the treaty of Tilsit, to ascertain the most expedient 
mode of effecting the conquest of the French share in the 
partition. 

The Divan no longer hesitated, and on the 28th of May 
1812, the peace of Bucharest was concluded. It was stipu- 
lated that the Pruth was henceforth to form the boundary 
of the two nations. Although the Cabinet of St. Petersburg- 
lost Moldavia and Wallachia, which they had declared part of 
their empire, they gained Bessarabia, which gave them the ad- 
vantage of commanding the mouths of the Danube. Tchi- 
chagoff, who had been sent from St. Petersburg to conclude 
the treaty, set off from Bucharest for the Vistula at the head 
of forty thousand men, who appeared with fatal effect on the 
great theatre of Europe, at the passage of the Beresina. 

The vigorous and patriotic resistance which Turkey at 
this period opposed to the Russians, sufficiently illustrates 
the elements of strength which lay dormant in the Ottoman 



212 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



empire. A proper knowledge of this protracted and bloody- 
war, together with the recent exhibitions of the energy and 
discipline of the Turkish army, ought to modify some of 
those opinions which have so long been received as political 
maxims in Europe, as to the feeble and continually declining 
power of the Grand Seignior. When it is recollected that 
Russia for three years directed her whole force against the 
Turks; that in the year 1810, she had a hundred thousand 
men upon the Danube; and that this army was composed 
of the heroes of Eylau, it certainly appears not a little sur- 
prising that the Ottoman empire was not overwhelmed in 
the shock. Nevertheless the contest was extremely equal; 
and although the forces with which the Ottomans had to 
contend on the Danube, equalled those which fronted Napo- 
leon on the Vistula, yet the Turks opposed nearly as effec- 
tual a resistance to the Muscovite arms, as did the conqueror 
of Western Europe. The contest began on the Danube, 
and it terminated after three years' bloodshed, on the same 
river, with the loss of only one or two frontier towns to the 
Ottomans. The political power of Turkey has unquestion- 
ably declined for the last century and a half ; and the abuses 
of its civil government have occasioned during that period 
a constant diminution of its inhabitants, yet it still possesses 
great resources which are always drawn forth by impending 
danger. In the native bravery of the Turks, is to be found 
more than a compensation for all the errors of their direction 
or government. 

Sultan Mahmoud, who attempted to resist the decay, and 
draw forth, under more enlightened guidance, the still 
powerful resources of the Ottoman empire, was one of those 
remarkable men whose character has stamped an impress 
on the age in which he lived. Although bred in the 
seclusion and effeminacy of the harem, he possessed the 
native courage and hardihood of his race. Little informed 
by education or social intercourse, he had sagacity to per- 
ceive the increasing inferiority of .the Mahometan to the 
Christian empires, and courage to undertake what was 
thought to be the remedy. He did not, like most of his 
countrymen, ascribe the decline of his dominions to the 
irresistible decrees of fate, and he vigorously applied him- 



MAHMOUD II. 



213 



self to avert the evil. He sought by the destruction of the 
privileged classes, and the introduction of European disci- 
pline and usages, both in civil and military affairs, to com- 
municate to his aged empire a portion of the energy of 
western civilization. The contest with ancient habits, en- 
grafted upon law and sanctified by religion, was long and 
obstinate, and the catastrophe by which it was brought to a 
close, in the destruction of the Janizaries in 1825, is one of 
the most awful recorded in history. This event, which for 
a time endangered the safety of the empire, stamped the 
character of Mahmoud for all future ages. It bespoke fear- 
less energy and undaunted courage. Braving the perils 
that had proved fatal to so many of his race, he subdued 
them all, and fixed, by his single hand, a different impress 
upon the institutions of a vast empire. 

Political regeneration in all states is of slow growth ; and 
it is difficult and dangerous especially in a Mahometan empire. 
Nevertheless, a very remarkable improvement has of late 
years taken place in Turkey, not merely in the science of 
military tactics and discipline, but in the civil institutions 
of the empire. The religious and civil institutions of the 
Koran may appear to preclude expansion and alteration, 
and if rigidly adhered to, may be inconsistent with the 
adoption of foreign usage. But when it is remembered that 
the Ulema, whose duty it is to interpret the Koran, invariably 
discover that the injunctions of the Prophet are never hostile 
to that which they themselves desire, it at once appears 
that the Koran is not such a barrier against improvement 
as is often supposed. The Ulema have long been an ambiti- 
ous, intriguing and turbulent "body ; but as they are now 
brought completely under the subjection of the crown, it 
may easily be supposed that henceforth the Koran will not 
stand in the way of enlightened and beneficial reforms. 
Much, indeed, may still depend upon the genius and temper 
of the Sovereign ; but with the march of improvement, the 
despotic power of the Sultan must gradually give way ; and 
from the lesson which the Turks have lately been taught, it 
can scarcely be supposed that any future Sultan will be so 
thoroughly benighted as not to listen in some measure to 
the council of more enlightened nations, and to imitate 



214 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



their example as far as is consistent with the safety of the 
state. 

The difficulty of introducing sudden and violent changes 
into the institutions of a country has already been noticed; 
and owing to the peculiar religion and long established 
habits of the Turks, it is extremely hazardous in that country. 
The violent revolutions which have just been narrated are 
illustrations of this remark; and the ultimate success of the 
introduction of the European discipline and tactics into the 
army, how difficult soever at first, clearly proves that the 
Turks are as susceptible and as capable of improvement as 
any other people. On the other hand, the danger of this 
change was clearly manifested. The power of Turkey 
appeared to be irrecoverably broken by the destruction of 
the Janizaries; the national resources had been ruined; and 
it became painfully evident that the vigour of a different 
civilization was not to be easily acquired. This appeared 
decisively in the next contest which ensued ; the line of the 
Danube was no longer maintained ; the Balkan ceased to be 
an impassable barrier ; in two campaigns, Eussia was at 
Adrianople; in one the Pasha of Egypt was within a few 
days march of Scutari. 

The Janizaries had long been a serious evil, and they 
continually opposed every species of improvement ; and by 
their power and capricious turbulency, were at the bottom 
of all the revolutions which so frequently disturbed the 
state; but they constituted the military strength of the 
nation. They were identified with its religious spirit; they 
were interwoven with its most venerable institutions. When 
a state has attained mature years, and consolidated its power, 
all innovations on its institutions, especially of a religious 
character, must be gradually and cautiously introduced. 
It is rare that any sudden transition can be made with 
safety. A certain character has been imprinted by the hand 
of nature upon every old established nation ; and any organic 
change in its religious or political institutions, suddenly and 
incautiously introduced, will in all probability accelerate its 
downfall. The recent modifications, however, introduced 
into the civil and military institutions of Turkey, dictated 
by an enlightened spirit, and carefully engrafted upon the 



MAHMOUD II. 



215 



old stem, appear to be destined to produce the most impor- 
tant and beneficial results. The gradual development of the 
civil and social condition of a country, becomes observable only 
after the lapse of years ; but the introduction of European 
habits and discipline into the Turkish army is already suffi- 
ciently apparent. Opposed to troops scarcely second to any in 
Europe, greatly inferior in point of numbers, more especially 
in cavalry and artillery, they have of late, in every engagement, 
shown themselves superior to the enemy in discipline and 
bravery, and, indeed, in everything pertaining to military 
science. Such rapid improvements indicate that the Turkish 
nation is capable, under a liberal and enlightened government, 
of maintaining its independence; and the presence of the 
English and Erench armies will serve to dissipate many 
of those prejudices which have long been the bane of 
Turkish policy, and lead to the gradual adoption of the 
institutions of the Western states. 

Mahmoud being now relieved from foreign danger, and 
when no cloud seemed to bode future evil, began to display 
those qualities of courage, energy, and political wisdom, 
which have stamped him as one of the ablest potentates of 
his time. The total dissolution of social order in the pro- 
vinces demanded his immediate attention, and he resolutely 
commenced to reduce the great officers of his empire with- 
in the bounds of obedience. In a few years he restored 
order and tranquillity to the greater part of his distracted 
empire. The task was difficult and dangerous, and would 
have appalled any Sultan of less courage and energy than 
Mahmoud. It seems extraordinary how the Ottoman em- 
pire, parcelled out as it was among a number of rebellious 
satraps, assailed by powerful enemies from without, and dis- 
tracted by contentions and bloodshed within, could, by any 
process whatever, be made to preserve a bond of civil and 
national concord. Each of his rebellious feudatories, within 
a few years, closed his romantic career. The accumulated 
wealth of the rapacious chiefs flowed to the Sultan, and 
served to recruit his exhausted treasury. Paswan Ogiu's 
death dissolved the union which that extraordinary man had 
formed with his native place, and restored Widdin to the 
control of a new governor. Czerni Georges, who had erected 



216 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



an independent principality, had been expelled from Servia 
after fifteen years of bloodshed ; and although possessed of 
a splendid fortune and every distinction which wealth could 
confer, he wearied of a life of languor and of ease. The 
restless chief entered the Turkish dominions in disguise, 
but was soon discovered by the watchful emissaries of the 
Porte. He was dragged before the Pasha of Belgrade, by 
whose command the Servian chief expiated, with his blood, 
a Kfe of cruelty and crime. 

The Sultan had a more difficult task to perform in reduc- 
ing the refractory Pasha of Janina. Ali Pasha, the Lion of 
Janina, as he was called, was born in a little village of 
Epirus in 1748. His father, Veli-Bey, was a private soldier 
in one of those bands of nomad adventurers common in 
Albania, where men become alternately heroes and banditti. 
His mother was a woman of great beauty, but of a savage 
and energetic character, in whose veins some of the blood 
of Scanderbeg is said to have flowed. She transmitted to 
her son Ali, the energy, the passions, and the ferocity of her 
race. His early career was replete with striking and re- 
markable incidents, exhibiting at times all the tenderness of 
a romantic passion, all the qualities of a hero, all the remorse- 
less cruelty of the savage. He became Pasha of Janina in 
1788. This extraordinary chief, the most artful and auda- 
cious recorded in the Ottoman annals, preserved a studious 
neutrality between the Sultan and his rebellious vassals and 
indomitable mountaineers. With thirty thousand disciplined 
Mussulmans under his orders, he maintained a secret corre- 
spondence with the discontented Greeks. The power and 
talents of Ali Pasha, rendered him an object of importance 
to the Sultan as well as to the Greeks, and he was courted 
alike by both parties. He turned his hostility, at the 
instigation of the Porte, against the Souliotes, who had 
taken up arms in favour of the Russians, and reduced them 
to subjection with great slaughter; and at the request of 
the Sultan, on the occasion of his conflicts with the Jani- . 
zaries, he advanced to the gates of Adrianople at the head 
of eighty thousand men. Such was the influence of Ali at 
this time with the Divan, that his two sons, Yeli and Mouctar, 
were appointed to important commands in the Morea; while 



MAHMOUD II. 



217 



he himself, secure in his inaccessible fortress in the lake of 
Janina, revolved in his mind dark schemes of conquest and 
independence. His influence extended over all Thessaly; 
and the position of the Pashalik and its contiguity to the 
Ionian isles, invested Ali with the rank and consideration of 
a respectable potentate. In 1821, he took possession of 
Parga, which brought under his dominion the whole of 
central Greece, from the ridge of Parnes to the rugged 
mountains of Illyricum. The Sultan having received intelli- 
gence of his designs, summoned him to Constantinople. 
The crafty Pasha disobeyed the command, upon which the 
Sultan prepared with all the energy of his character to re- 
duce him to submission. Chourchid Pasha received the 
command of an army of forty thousand men, with which he 
approached Albania. When the Greek revolution broke 
out, he had already been two years engaged in ceaseless 
hostilities with its indomitable mountaineers. 

Within his inaccessible fortress in the lake, for three 
months Ali had been closely blockaded. Provisions were 
beginning to fail, and the garrison, worn out with incessant 
watching, and destitute of hope, gave way to the seductions 
of Chourchid Pasha, who promised them a large share of 
the treasures if they would betray their chief. Caretto, 
Ali's chief engineer, betrayed his master, and carried to the 
besiegers all the plans adopted for the defence of the fortress. 
Aided by this information and the defection of part of his 
Albanian garrison, the fortress was occupied, after a feigned 
resistance, by the troops of Chourchid. Ali escaped into an 
inner tower communicating with the fortress by a draw- 
bridge. This tower consisted of three stories, to the high- 
est of which he retired with his harem, and fifty armed and 
trusty followers; in the second his treasures were deposited; 
and in the lowest was placed a powder magazine with every 
preparation ready, at a moment's warning, to blow the edifice 
into the air. His treasures and his head were what the 
besiegers most coveted. The means of negotiating were 
therefore in his own hands; and the savage but heroic chief, 
whose energy seventy-eight years had not abated, calmly 
awaited the proposals of his enemies. Deserted by his 
family, betrayed by his friends, and left to contend against 



218 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



the most appalling clangers, Ali showed himself more magna- 
nimous in adversity, than he had ever been in the day of 
his power. In his desperate situation, he maintained an 
unshaken firmness and tranquillity. 

The situation of the chief w r as hopeless; and preferring 
the chances of pardon, to the inevitable fate which awaited 
him, he listened to the perfidy of Chourchid Pasha, who 
held out the prospect of a favourable capitulation. Ali was 
to enjoy his treasures, his harem, and the title of Vizier, 
with a suitable command in Asia Minor during his life. It 
was stipulated, however, in return, that Ali should remove 
from his tower, and take up his residence on an island in 
the lake, on which a pleasure-house had been constructed 
for his reception, and there await the firman containing 
the pardon of the Sultan, and the entire restoration to his 
favour. Ali became the victim of his own arts. He re- 
moved, with his wife and a few intrepid Albanians, to the 
island ; and he even delivered, although with some difficulty, 
to the officers of Chourchid Pasha, a signet ring, the well- 
known token which enjoined implicit obedience on all his 
servants. The Turks instantly rowed across the lake, and 
ascended the tower which contained the treasures. The 
faithful guardian of the magazine, who stood at the door 
with a lighted torch in his hand ready to blow it into the 
air in the case of alarm, bowed with respect before the talis- 
man, and extinguished the torch. He was instantly de- 
spatched by repeated strokes of the poniard; and the per- 
fidious assassin, rowing back to Air's island, presented to 
him the fatal firman, which, instead of the promised par- 
don, contained the order for his immediate death. As soon 
as he saw it, Ali exclaimed, " Stop! what are you bringing 
me?" "The order of the Sultan," replied Hassan, the 
officer; "he demands your head.' , "The head of Ali," 
said the Pasha, "is not so easily won;" and drawing his 
pistols he laid Hassan at his feet with one, and with another, 
the chief of the staff Chourchid. A frightful conflict en- 
sued between Ali's faithful guard and his assassins, in the 
course of which Ali was mortally wounded by a ball in the 
side. " Bun/ 5 said he, " and put to death Vasiliki, my 
wife, that she may follow me to the tomb, and the traitors 



MAHMOUD II. 



219 



may not sully her beauty." These were his last words. 
The dead body of Ali, drawn by the beard, was pulled to 
the door, where his head was cut off and sent to the Sultan. 
Vasiliki, in tears was led to Chourchid's tent, who treated 
her with respect, and accorded her permission to inter her 
husband ; " and the valleys of Pindus soon resounded with 
the death- wail of the Lion of Janina." 

The head of Ali was brought to Constantinople, and ex- 
posed at the gate of the Seraglio in a silver dish. The 
greatest enthusiasm prevailed in the capital, as if, by the 
destruction of a single chief, the Turks had annihilated all 
their enemies. 

A romantic immortality has been conferred on the Pasha 
of Janina, who for thirty years virtually ruled over conti- 
nental Greece and Epirus, by the intercourse he had with 
Lord Byron, whose stanzas frequently refer to the Pasha 
and to the grand and gloomy scenery of Albania. 

The traveller on proceeding from Constantinople, by the 
gate of Setyviria, may observe a small and retired cemetery, 
on the parapet wall of which, raised on the wayside, are 
five Turkish tombstones. From the manner of their ar- 
rangement, they form peculiarly striking objects. These 
are the monuments of Ali Pasha, his three sons and his 
grandson. Their five heads were purchased of the public 
executioner at a great price, and interred by the person 
who long transacted the duties of the Pasha's confidential 
agency at the capital. 

Mahmoud was indebted to the Viceroy of Egypt for res- 
cuing the sacred territory of Mecca and Medina from the 
Wahabites, and restoring it to the faithful Mussulmans who 
annually resort to the birth-place and tomb of the Prophet. 
For many years, these spots, so sacred to the followers of 
Islamism, had been interdicted to their vows. The Waha- 
bites not only occupied the province of Nedjed, but carried 
their incursions as far as Bagdad, and spared not the splen- 
did shrines of Kerbela and Meshed Ali. The Imaums of 
Sunna and Muscat were tributaries to Sahoud Abdallah ; 
the isles of Baherin received his governor; the Shah of 
Persia propitiated his friendship by magnificent gifts. 

In the year 1816, Mahomet Ali acquainted Sahoud Ab- 



220 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



dallah that he would send his son Ibrahim Pasha with a nu- 
merous army to ruin the country and exterminate the in- 
habitants, and leave not one stone standing upon another in 
his capital, Derayeh, and that he would lead him dead or 
alive to Constantinople. Agreeably to this threat, Ibrahim, 
in the month of September, started upon his expedition. 
He embarked his troops on board a flotilla at Suez, and 
steered his course down the Eed Sea, and cast anchor in the 
port of Sambo. In six days afterwards, and without oppo- 
sition, he reached the city of Medina. The situation of 
Ibrahim would have been critical, had not a powerful Sheik, 
who sought to revenge the blood of his brother on Abdallah, 
united his tribe with the Egyptian forces. In the course of 
two years Ibrahim had successfully detached from the 
Wahabite cause their allies and chief dependencies; and 
after the capture of all the principal cities and strongholds, 
he reached the province of ISTedjed, the seat of Abdallah's 
power. The siege of Derayeh commenced in the month of 
April, and although the Arabs could not face the artillery of 
the Egyptians, it was the month of September before Ab- 
dallah was reduced to submission. Abdallah sought the 
tent of the conqueror, and requested a conference. " Why 
did you continue the war?" demanded Ibrahim. "Destiny 
willed it; but the war is ended," was the chief's reply. " If 
you desire to defend yourself longer, I will supply you with 
ammunition," exclaimed Ibrahim. " No, God has favoured 
your arms; it is not your soldiers but His will which thus 
humbleth me," replied Abdallah. Tears were ready to 
start from the eyes of the Arab chief, when Ibrahim sought 
to console him, saying, " that many as elevated as himself 
had felt the reverse of fortune." Abdallah demanded peace: 
Ibrahim granted it, but observed that he was not authorized 
to leave him- at Derayeh, as his father's orders were to send 
him to Egypt. Abdallah grew thoughtful, and demanded 
a delay of twenty-four hours to give his answer. The re- 
quest was granted, and the vanquished hero retired into the 
fort. Scarcely had he left the tent when Ibrahim began to 
reflect that he might never again be master of Abdallah's 
person. During the short interview he had been favourably 
impressed with Ibrahim, and the once powerful Arab, faith- 



MAHMOUD II. 



221 



ful to his word, delivered himself to the conqueror. The 
chief, at the expiry of the twenty-four hours, was received 
with the most studied respect. When the Pasha demanded 
how he had decided, he replied, " that he was resolved to 
go, provided he was assured of his life." The prince replied, 
« that it did not become him to control the will of the Sul- 
tan or of his father, but he considered both of them as too 
generous and noble to cause his death." Abdallah then re- 
commended his family to Ibrahim's care, and besought him 
not to injure Derayeh; and having received a white hand- 
kerchief as a token of peace, he retired to make preparations 
for his journey. Abdallah traversed the desert, with a guard 
of four hundred men. Thus was the sacred territory again 
restored to the Sultan. 

On the 18th of November, 1818, Abdallah was presented 
to Mahomet Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt. During the inter- 
view he held a small ivory box in shape of a writing case, 
and the Viceroy demanded what it was : he replied that it 
contained what Sahoud, his father, had taken from the tomb 
of the Prophet. On opening the box, there appeared three 
magnificent copies of the Koran, garnished with rubies on 
the envelope, and adorned with three hundred pearls of 
large dimensions, and an emerald attached to a cord of gold. 
Abdallah sailed for Constantinople. The Viceroy had 
solicited his pardon, but the divan were implacable, and 
Abdallah was sacrificed to gratify the resentment of an 
ignorant and fanatical people. This prince, after being 
paraded along the streets of the capital for three days, was, 
together with his unfortunate companions, beheaded in the 
square of St. Sophia. Thus perished Abdallah ebn 
Sahoud, the faithful and devoted chief of a brave and war- 
like race. 

Thus had Sultan Mahmoud triumphed over the most 
powerful chiefs that had long disturbed the internal tran- 
quillity of the empire. Other pashas and agas were de- 
posed; the hereditary pashaliks were abolished, and he 
suppressed the insolent Janizaries, who, under the influence 
and direction of the Ulema, had so long held the sovereign 
and capital in thraldom. Events of a more formidable 
nature, in which the most powerful states of Europe were 
interested, awaited the Sultan. 



222 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



The repeated and unsuccessful insurrections of the Greeks 
had produced a more universal and bitter feeling of exasper- 
ation in Greece against the Osmanlis, than in any other part 
of the Ottoman dominions. Deeds of cruelty had been mutu- 
ally inflicted, deadly threats interchanged which could never 
be forgotten nor forgiven. The arrogant disposition and 
furious temper of the Turks, which is often obliterated dur- 
ing the tranquillity of peace, reappeared with terrible se- 
verity when danger threatened their power. But they had 
as great injuries to avenge; for in political as well as civil 
and social contests, the cruel law of retaliation is the inva- 
riable resource of suffering humanity. It is tolerably 
certain that the rebellion of Ali Pasha, determined more 
than any other event the period of that extensive insurrec- 
tion, for which Greece had long been in a state of prepara- 
tion. The explosion was premature; and other circum- 
stances concurred to excite the fermentation which led 
to the first irregular movement in the cause of Grecian 
independence. 

While the Greek states of the Ottoman empire were in- 
volved in civil commotion, it was evident to the Turks that 
the agency of Kussia was secretly at work in those parts of 
their dominions. Although the designs, perhaps, of imm ediate 
conquest were laid aside, the foundation was established for 
future inroads, by a crooked and stealthy policy, covered in 
their right of intervention, stipulated between the Kussians 
and the Turks in the affairs of Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, 
and the islands in the Archipelago, by the treaties of Kainardji 
in 1774, Jassay in 1792, and Bucharest in 1812. The Divan 
did not. foresee the use which might be made of this right; 
but it placed in the cabinet of St. Petersburg the means of 
availing itself at any time of some real or imaginary griev- 
ance, under which the Christian inhabitants of Turkey might 
be thought to labour, to declare war upon the Porte. All the 
subsequent wars between the two powers have taken their rise 
from these treaties. The pretext of Kussia for the present war, 
which seems likely to involve all Europe in a conflagration, 
has arisen out of this right of intervention and a supposed 
protection of the Christian subjects of the Porte. But. a 
disinterested interpretation of these treaties does not confer 



MAHMOUD II. 



223 



upon Kussia any of those extraordinary privileges to which 
she lays claim. 

The necessity of preserving the independence of Turkey 
as an element in the balance of power, had been received as 
a political maxim which no cabinet in Europe pretended to 
dispute ; and determined to maintain that independence, the 
last three wars between Russia and Turkey had been ter- 
minated by the intervention of one or more of the leading 
European powers. By the congress of Vienna, it was sought 
to establish on a permanent footing the relation of the vari- i 
ous European governments, to restore the ancient limits of 
some states, to re-establish the independence of others, and 
to unite all in an alliance, with the view to permanent tran- 
quillity. It was considered indispensable to strip France of 
the acquisitions she had made, not in prudence only, but in 
justice ; but it did not appear to the victors that a resti- 
tution of their own acquisitions was also demanded by the 
same inflexible law, nor did it appear to them that it was 
at all necessary to re-establish the kingdoms which they 
themselves had overthrown. France, accordingly, was di- 
vested of her conquests : England restored foreign colonies 
in both hemispheres ; but Russia restored nothing. Finland, 
Poland, and all her conquests in Turkey and Persia were 
confirmed to her, or remained annexed to her crown. The 
proposition to re-unite the broken fragments of the Polish 
kingdom, was met by a declaration from Russia, Austria, 
and Prussia, that a million of men were ready to oppose it. 
Justice and sound policy alike demanded the re-establish- 
ment of the kingdom of Poland, the restitution of Finland 
to the Swedish crown, and a rearrangement of the Turkish 
frontiers. The British Cabinet was aware of the dangers 
that might arise to Europe from such an undue aggrandise- 
ment of Russia ; but the short-sighted policy of Austria and 
Prussia, who were themselves participators in the spoil, pre- 
ferred present gain to ultimate security. There was there- 
fore no power in Europe except Great Britain that could 
even presume to propose such restitutions ; and under the 
circumstances, how just soever might have been her demands, 
she was far from being in a position singly to enforce them. 
Turkey took no part in these negotiations, and gained no 



224 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



advantage in the arrangements. Europe, indeed, needed re- 
pose, and no one power could have taken up arms without 
finding itself opposed by the moral influence, if not by the 
forces of the European community. Thus, chiefly through 
the revolutionary wars, Eussia has acquired a preponderating 
influence, both moral and physical, over the central states 
of Europe. Her position in the Baltic appears to be almost 
impregnable ; and her influence in that sea, since the ter- 
mination of the war, has perhaps been greater than any 
other maritime power. Her exclusive command of the 
Black sea has enabled her to push her schemes of conquest 
in the east; she has restricted the commercial traffic of 
central Europe by her command of the mouths of the Danube ; 
she has continually disturbed the tranquillity of the Ottoman 
empire, and by her naval superiority in the Euxine, she has 
been enabled to carry her legions over the Danube and the 
Balkan, and to threaten Constantinople itself. 

Turkey, though no party to the alliance which had charged 
itself with preserving tranquillity, yet profited by the moral 
feeling which would have condemned the first infraction of 
peace as a crime. Nations were invited to submit their dif- 
ferences to the decisions of a congress, which assembled from 
time to time, in different parts of Europe, to adjust the 
various questions that might have arisen between them. 
Although no international war had disturbed the general 
repose, intestine commotions interrupted the internal tran- 
quillity of different European states. Spain attempted a 
revolution which was suppressed by the armies of Eranee. 
Portugal was occupied by England as a counterpoise to the 
French power in the Peninsula. Kevolutions in Italy were 
put down, not, without foreign interference ; and a civil war 
in Greece engaged the Ottoman empire in a protracted and 
disastrous contest. 

Catherine II. of Eussia, as has been already shown, 
fomented rebellions in Greece and other Christian provinces, 
with the view to the ultimate if not the immediate conquest 
of the Ottoman empire. The Turkish fleet had been de- 
livered by the Eussians to the flames in the bay of Tchesme ; 
Constantine had been christened by that name, because the 
Empress designed him for the successor of Constantine 



MAHMOUD II. 



225 



Palseologus, the last of the Caesars ; and the intervention of 
the European powers in 1789, prevented that design from 
being accomplished, and the cross being restored on the 
dome of St. Sophia. The cabinet of St. Petersburg has at 
all times evinced a desire to preserve her intercourse with 
the Greeks ; and on this occasion the first movement was 
produced by officers in her service. It is impossible to doubt 
that the power which had so clearly evinced its disposition 
to extend its influence in the Levant, would not avail itself 
of the first opportunity to shake the Ottoman power 
to the foundation, by establishing an independent state in 
Greece. 

After the fall of Buonaparte the peace of Europe was ob- 
viously necessary to Russia, and with that view her govern- 
ment had been the most active in organizing the alliance for 
that desirable purpose. But true to the policy which she had 
prescribed to herself, she influenced through her secret agency, 
if she did not excite, the revolt in Greece. Affecting 
publicly to act upon the principles she professed, she offered 
to aid the Porte in suppressing the rebellion which that 
cabinet attributed exclusively to her agency. The propo- 
sition was at once rejected by the Sultan. The Russian am- 
bassador at Constantinople forthwith resorted to every means 
to bring about a rupture with Turkey, merely because she 
persevered in her attempts, in virtue of her own right, to 
suppress a rebellion which Russia had first instigated, and 
then gratuitously offered to put down. The cabinet of St. 
Petersburg suspended its diplomatic relations with the 
Porte, and inflicted the greatest indignities upon the Turkish 
government. But Sultan Mahmoud had too much pene- 
tration and energy not to foresee the designs of Russia, and 
not to resist the threats and insinuations of that power. 
Russian agents inflamed the petty differences between Persia 
and Turkey ; induced the Prince Royal, in opposition to the 
wishes of the Shah and the advice of Great Britain, to in- 
vade the Ottoman dominions ; and attempted to justify to the 
father the disobedience of the son. It was evident, from 
these and other transactions, to every cabinet in Europe, that 
Russia was anxious to force Turkey into a war ; but peace 
was still dominant in Europe. The congress of Yerona 

p 



226 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



formally acknowledged the right of the Sultan to exclude all 
foreign intervention between himself and his subjects, whether 
Christian or Mahometan. This decision was officially an- 
nounced to the Porte by the British ambassador, and the 
question appeared to be decided. 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 

Greece, compared to the great figure it has made in human 
affairs, is of extremely small extent. Including the Cyclades, 
its entire population in 1836, was only 688,000 souls ; in 
superficial extent it is less than Scotland, and not half the 
size of Ireland. The density of the population is only thirty- 
one to the square mile, while in England it is three hundred. 
Owing to the benignity of the climate, however, and the ad- 
vantages of its situation for maritime purposes, it is extremely 
fruitful, and yields an amount of produce far beyond what 
could have been anticipated from its scanty population. Its 
value within the straits of Thermopylae amounted in 1814- 
to £3,000,000 annually. Its rocky slopes which, in North- 
ern Europe, would produce only furze or heath, are capable, 
owing to the genial warmth of the sun, of bearing rich crops 
of grapes, maize, and olives. The mountain chains are 
extremely steep and numerous, and intersect each other in 
many directions ; and they are covered with forests, sharp 
pointed stones, or breaks of thorny plants, and intersected 
by numberless deep ravines, the beds of w r ater torrents. 
Independent of the many enchanting associations connected 
with Greece, the mountain scenery is of surpassing sub- 
limity and grandeur, and the valleys and plains are of re- 
markable beauty and fertility. 

Eour centuries of servitude had not annihilated the dis- 
tinctive features of the Greeks. Although subjected to the 
dominion of the Ottoman, they retained their nationality, 
their country, their language, their religion. In these we 
perceive the means of ultimate salvation and the elements 
of future independence. Notwithstanding the government 
of the Turks, peculiarly oppressive to a people of different 
manners, language, and religion., possessing the elements of 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



227 



independence, and feeling a strong sense of oppression and a 
desire of vengeance, the Greeks in some places had come to 
enjoy a very high degree of prosperity. Various circum- 
stances had contributed in the early part of the nineteenth 
century to increase in them the material sources of national 
strength. The trade through Turkey into Hungary and 
all the centre of Europe, in consequence of the continental 
blockade during the last ten years of the war, had been at- 
tended with extraordinary profits, and had come to exceed 
£3,000,000 annually of exports from Britain alone. This 
trade had been entirely engrossed by the Greeks. Their 
traffic in the Levant was carried in 600 vessels, bearing 6,000 
guns, and manned by 18,000 seamen. 

Twenty-five years have elapsed since the independence of 
Greece was sealed by the battle of Navarino ; and the hopes 
of her friends, in many respects, have not been disappointed. 
Her capital, Athens, contains thirty thousand inhabitants, 
quadruple what it did when the contest terminated; its 
commerce has doubled, and many of the signs of advancing 
prosperity are to be seen in the land. The inhabitants have 
increased fifty per cent. ; but the chasms produced by the 
war, especially in the male population, are still in a great 
measure unsupplied. But the Greeks have not all the 
virtues of freemen ; perhaps they are never destined to ex- 
hibit them. Like the Muscovites, they are cunning, fraud- 
ulent, deceitful ; slaves are always such. A thousand years of 
Byzantine despotism, and four hundred years of Mahometan 
oppression, have left these prominent features stamped upon 
their national character. They still, however, possess many 
of the qualities to which the greatness of their ancestors was 
owing. They are lively, ardent, and persevering, passion- 
ately desirous of knowledge, and indefatigable in the pur- 
suit of it. The greater part of the commercial life and 
activity which yet animates the Ottoman empire is owing to 
their intelligence and activity. The descendants of the 
ancient Hellenes still exhibit in their persons the beautiful 
classic forms which we admire in the works of ancient 
masters. They are giddy, vacillating, vain, and boasting ; 
but they have proved themselves worthy of their heroic an- 
cestors. They have in general a fine and slender shape, 



228 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



their motions are noble, their features expressive, and their 
dress clean and elegant. The women are slender, with fine 
features, an expressive countenance, and their manners are 
full of dignity. Mr. Emerson mentions that on an exami- 
nation of the traits of Greek character peculiar to each dis- 
trict, we shall, upon the whole, find the seeds of numerous 
virtues, however slightly developed, still discernible under 
a mass of vices ; and which, when properly cultivated, under 
an equitable government, cannot fail to raise the Greeks high 
in the scale of nations. Their characters, however, are very 
different, according to their position and circumstances. 
The Albanians, for instance, have ceased to be considered 
either Mussulmans or Greeks. Those who have been closely 
connected with the Turks are less amiable and exalted in 
their character, than the inhabitants of what is now termed 
Eastern and Western Greece. The descendants of the 
ancient Spartans, in the south-eastern promontory, seem pos- 
sessed of the common virtues of barbarians, accompanied by 
almost all their vices. In the Hydriots and Spezziots there 
is much to admire and esteem, especially among the higher 
orders. 

The Greek church, which has been embraced by almost 
all the Sclavonic nations in the north of Europe, presents 
Christianity in its most degraded form. It is in the protec- 
tion of this religion, that Russia has found a cloak for all 
her infamous intrigues and wars against the Ottoman state. 
At a time when every person in Europe out of his own 
dominions, saw through his shallow and hypocritical protesta- 
tions, the Czar, with his usual sympathy, sought the pro- 
tectorate of the Christian subjects of an independent state, 
and rather than abandon his absurd and fallacious claims, 
and desist from what he would fain make the world believe 
a patriotic duty, he has plunged the most powerful states of 
Europe in war. The revolts of the ^rreek subjects of the 
Porte were invariably stirred up through the medium of 
the church. The crooked policy or the fanatical bigotry 
of the Greek princes who filled the throne of Byzantium, 
the pious frauds of their monks, combined with the credulity 
and superstition of an ignorant populace, have been con- 
tinually loading their religion with new errors, new absur- 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



229 



dities, and new corruptions. Though its priests are more 
numerous than those of any other church, its rites and 
forms infinitely complicated, it is scarcely possible to trace 
one genuine idea of Christianity in the minds of either the 
clergy or the laity, or one trait of its influence on their 
practice. The fasts and festivals of the Greek church absorb 
about two-thirds of the year ; and its whole tendency seems 
to be to render its votaries ignorant, superstitious, and 
bigoted. 

As a natural consequence of an influx of prosperity, and 
a necessarily extended intercourse with foreign nations, 
there had arisen in the islands of Greece, and even in some 
of the principal towns of the continent, an anxious desire to 
be readmitted into the European family to which they felt 
they belonged by religion, language and recollections. 
These feelings were encouraged and strengthened by the 
intrigues of Russia, to which they mainly looked for assist- 
ance. They did not, however, venture to express them 
openly. With all the military force in the country and all 
the fortresses in the hands of the Mussulmans, it was evident 
to the Greeks that open insurrection would involve them in 
one common ruin. In these circumstances, they formed 
secret societies. A great association was formed of Greeks, 
not only in their own territory, but in Constantinople, 
Bavaria, Austria, and Russia, the object of which was to 
effect the entire independence of Greece. Count Capo 
dTstria, a Greek by birth, and private secretary to the 
Emperor Alexander, encouraged the hope that the objects of 
the society were at least secretly espoused by the Cabinet 
of St. Petersburg. 

Like all other secret associations for revolutionary pur- 
poses, the society of the Hetairests had different gradations 
of members. The several grades were unknown to each 
other; and to the head or ruling class only, the whole 
secrets were known. The first class into which all Greeks 
without exception w r ere admitted, were informed that the 
objects of the society were merely to ameliorate the social 
condition of the Greeks. The next class was selected with 
more discrimination, and called Systemenoi, or Bachelors; 
and they were apprised in secret, that the objects of the 



230 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



society were to effect an entire revolution and severance 
from Turkey. The third class, termed Priests of Eleusis, 
were cautiously told that the period of the struggle ap- 
proached; and even this class, although they knew that 
there existed in the Hetairia higher classes than their own, 
did not know of whom they w r ere composed. Nearly the 
whole Greek priests belonged to this class, and it embraced 
no less than one hundred and sixteen prelates of their per- 
suasion. The fourth class contained only sixteen names. 
The secrecy which surrounded this class added to its influ- 
ence. It was known, however, that Count Capo d'Xstria 
was of the number ; and it was whispered at the time, and 
subsequent events have corroborated the fact, that amongst 
other illustrious names of which this unknown class was 
composed, were the Emperor of Russia, the Crown Prince 
of Bavaria, and the Hospodar of Wallachia. The seat of the 
grand circle or ruling committee, was in Moscow; their 
orders were written in cipher, and signed with a seal bear- 
ing in sixteen compartments as many initial letters. The 
society had secret signs and modes of recognition, some 
common to all members, others known only to the higher 
grades, each of which had separate signs, known only to 
themselves; and all contributed according to their means to 
the common objects of the society. Such was the constitu- 
tion of the secret association which ultimately achieved the 
independence of Greece; and such was the secrecy with 
which its operations were conducted, that when the insur- 
rection burst forth in 1821, the Mussulmans were taken as 
much by surprise as if the earth had suddenly opened under 
their feet. 

The growing sympathy of the Christian population with 
the Greeks, had tinged every cabinet in Europe, and it 
seemed impossible that the affairs of Turkey could be judged 
with equity, or that they could calmly consider the political 
consequences that might arise out of a revolutionary contest. 
Russia saw the advantages which she could not fail to de- 
rive from the popular excitement in favour of the Christians 
and against the Mahometans. The other European powers, 
who were not unaware of the designs of Russia, looked upon 
her proffered intervention in behalf of the revolutionists in 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



231 



Greece with alarm. There remained but the alternative of 
interdicting her by a threat of hostilities, or to curb her am- 
bition by associating with her in the negociations by which 
it was proposed to restore peace in the Levant, and to con- 
fine her interference solely to the accomplishment of that 
object. With this view the Emperor Nicholas, who had 
recently mounted the throne, was invited by England and 
France to unite with them in restoring tranquillity to 
Greece. The protocol signed at St. Petersburg restrained 
the three powers to a friendly mediation between the 
Sultan and his rebellious subjects. The Sultan declined to 
accept the proffered mediation, upon which, the three 
powers, founding their right to interfere on the interruption 
to which the commerce of the Mediterranean was subjected, 
by piracies in the Levant, concluded a treaty at London, on 
the 6th July 1827, by which they mutually engaged to en- 
force, by hostilities, if necessary, the adjustment of the dif- 
ferences between the Porte and the Greeks on terms to be pre- 
scribed to both parties. This arrangement still reserved to 
the Sultan the feudal superiority over Greece, and a yearly 
tribute from that country. These terms of settlement were 
indignantly rejected by the Porte. The result of this de- 
termination will appear in the sequel. 

The public feeling in Europe had been strongly excited 
in favour of the Greeks, when the Spanish revolution of 
1820 broke out. It was quickly followed by those in Na- 
ples, Sicily, Piedmont, and by an extraordinary fermenta- 
tion alike in France, Germany, and England. These and 
other concurring circumstances, led, in the course of the 
following year, to the Greek revolution. 

The first war-note of liberty was raised at Bucharest, by 
a band of Greeks and Arnauts, one hundred and fifty in 
number, under the command of Theodore Valdimaruko, 
formerly a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian service. So 
general had been the disaffection, that in a few days Theo- 
dore found himself at the head of twelve thousand men, to 
whom were soon added two thousand Arnauts, who formed 
the police of Bucharest. Ere long another insurrection 
equally formidable, broke out in J assay, the capital of Mol- 
davia. On the 7th March, 1821, Prince] Alexander Ipsi- 



232 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



lanti, an officer of distinction in the Russian service, entered 
Jassay at the head of two hundred horse, from whence he 
issued a proclamation, calling upon the Greeks to take up 
arms, and promising them the support of Russia. The in- 
surgents soon amounted to twenty thousand, and to op- 
pose this formidable body, the Turks had in the two pro- 
vinces only six hundred cavalry. A battalion styled the 
Sacred Battalion, which embraced the flower of the youth 
of the country, was organized by Ipsilanti. Their uniform 
was black, with a cross formed of bones in front, with the 
famous inscription of Constantine, " In this sign you shall 
conquer/' Ipsilanti diligently spread abroad the news of 
approaching aid from Russia, and he made large requisitions 
in horses and provisions for the alleged use of the troops of 
that power. Meanwhile the fermentation was extreme 
throughout all Greece and the isles, and the utmost alarm 
prevailed at Constantinople. The Ottoman government 
regarded the danger as serious, and in secret instigated by 
the agents of Russia. Intelligence of the insurrection was 
conveyed to the Emperor Alexander in April, at the con- 
gress of Laybach, who, with other sovereigns was engaged 
in deliberating on the affairs of Spain, Naples, and Pied- 
mont. These events opened up bright prospects to Rus- 
sian ambition. Had the Russian army crossed the Pruth, 
the insurrection of the Christian population in the Ottoman 
dominions would have been universal; and in the then dis- 
organized state of the Turkish empire, the insurgents, aided 
by the Muscovite battalions, might in all probability have 
totally annihilated the Ottoman empire in Europe. But 
such bold and open perfidy did not suit the genius of Rus- 
sia. The Cabinet of St. Petersburg was aware, that how 
much soever the other nations of Europe were occupied with 
their domestic troubles and social dangers, that they would 
not allow Russia to seize the Ottoman states, and that if she 
attempted to do so, she would involve herself in war with 
the most powerful monarchies in Europe, for which she 
was by no means prepared. 

In this critical state of matters, orders were sent to the 
imperial forces on the Pruth and in the Black Sea, to ob- 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



233 



serve the strictest neutrality ; and the name of Ipsilanti was 
erased from the Russian service. 

The religious zeal and patriotic ardour of the Ottomans 
were now fairly roused. Large bodies daily crossed over 
from Asia, and marched through the capital to the Balkan 
and the Danube. The tumultuary bands of Theodore and 
Ipsilanti, discouraged by the policy of Russia, were totally 
unequal to the contest in the plains of Moldavia and Walla- 
chia. On the 9th of April the Russian consul at Jassay 
issued, by the command of the Emperor, two proclamations 
which were decisive of his intentions regarding the insurrec- 
tion. By the first, Ipsilanti was summoned forthwith to 
repair to the Russian territory, while by the second, the 
whole Moldavians in arms, were summoned forthwith to 
submit to the lawful authorities. Ipsilanti was on his march 
to Bucharest when he received this disastrous intelligence, 
but he was not discouraged. His forces consisted of 4,000 
infantry, 2,500 horse, and four guns ; and conceiving that 
nothing but decisive success would restore his fortune, he 
posted himself at the village of Dragaschan. The situation 
of the Turks was critical; but as the day was Tuesday, 
which is deemed of sinister augury by the Greeks, the ac- 
tion was deferred till the morning of the 19th, and the 
Turks had not failed to take advantage of the interval. 
Ipsilanti's Wallachian confederates deserted him in the hour 
of trial. The victory was complete. Twenty-five only of 
the Sacred Battalion were saved from the sabres of the 
Turks, who escaped with their chief into Transylvania. 
Ipsilanti was seized by the Austrians and consigned to a 
dungeon. With the defeat of Ipsilanti the insurrection in 
Wallachia and Moldavia was entirely suppressed. 

While in Wallachia the voice of liberty was stifled in its 
birth, it sounded a louder note along the shores and islands 
of the JEgean Sea, and was re-echoed from Sparta to 
Macedonia. Colocotroni, formerlv a major in the service of 
Russia, Peter Marvo, Michael, and other chiefs, who had 
been prepared for the event, had been collecting arms all 
winter in the caverns of Mount Taygetus ; and having re- 
ceived orders from Ipsilanti, they assembled their followers 
in the mountains, in the centre of the Peloponnesus, and raised 



234 " HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



the standard of revolt. The Morea, however, was the prin- 
cipal theatre of action, and a general congress was formed at 
Calamata for the purpose of union and subordination. The 
whole islands of the Archipelago hoisted the standard of the 
cross; and Hydra, Spezzia, and Ipsara, the strongest and 
most powerful among them, supplied a marine of more 
than a hundred armed vessels, manned by the best and brav- 
est seamen in the empire, to protect their shores, and inter- 
cept the commerce of the enemy. 

The intelligence of these events fell like a thunderbolt 
upon the populace of Constantinople. Roused to fresh ex- 
ertions and inspired with more sanguinary passions by the 
continual passage of armed and fanatical Turks from Asia 
towards the Danube, death to the Christians was the 
universal cry of the Mussulmans. They could not at first 
believe that the slaves of Greece would boldly court destruc- 
tion from the strong arm of their Ottoman masters. ■ The 
Divan, in the hope of crushing the insurrection in the bud, 
resolved on an atrocious act, which greatly tended to spread 
and perpetuate the insurrection. This was the murder of 
Gregory, Patriarch of Constantinople. He was eighty years 
of age, and was seized on Easter Sunday, as he was de- 
scending from the altar, and hanged at the gate of his archi- 
episcopal palace amid the ferocious cries of a vast crowd of 
Mussulmans. After hanging for three hours, his body was 
cut down and delivered to a few abandoned Jews, by whom 
it was dragged through the streets and thrown into the sea. 
Many others shared the same fate. Similar atrocities were 
committed at Adrianople. In ten days several thousand 
innocent persons were in this manner massacred. At Salo- 
nica the battlements of the town were lined with a frightful 
array of Christian heads, the blood from which ran down 
the front of the rampart and discoloured the water in the 
ditch. In all the great towns in the empire similar scenes 
were enacted. It appeared to the Greeks that no hope re- 
mained but in determined resistance, and they were fired 
with more deadly enmity against their tyrants. The Greeks 
could not stifle in their bosoms the natural spirit of revenge, 
and they were led to imitate those savage acts of outrage 
and cruelty, at the bare recital of which humanity shudders. 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



235 



During these convulsions which were shaking to the 
centre the Ottoman throne and awakening the indignation 
of ail Europe, Sultan Mahmoud was revolving in his mind 
the organization of a more efficient military force in the 
capital. The Janizaries had taken the lead in all the mas- 
sacres that had been committed ; and discontented with the 
removal of their former vizier, who had given full reins to 
their fury, loudly demanded his recall to office, and the heads 
of six of their principal enemies in the council. The Sultan 
tried to subdue them by firmness; but having no other 
armed force, he soon found that such a course would lead to 
his own destruction. He was more than ever convinced of 
the necessity of a change : in the meantime he resolved to 
dissemble till his preparations for their thraldom were com- 
plete. It was resolved and agreed to in full Divan that a 
large body of troops should be organized, clothed, and 
drilled in the European fashion, and that the name of Nizam- 
Djedeh, which had cost Sultan Selim his life, should be for 
ever abolished. 

The atrocities perpetrated in Asia even rivalled those com- 
mitted in European Turkey. There the Mussulmans were 
more numerous in proportion to the Christians ; they had 
had less communication with Europeans ; they were more 
ignorant, and therefore the fanatical spirit was more violent. 
The Mussulmans were in the exclusive possession of arms, 
and consequently they met with little resistance. Several 
thousands of men, women, and children fell victims to the 
most brutal violence. During the time of this wholesale 
butchery, fifteen thousand escaped in boats, and found 
shelter in the islands of the Archipelago. Such as could 
not escape in this manner, took refuge in the hotel and 
gardens of the French Consul who, by the weight of his 
character alone, kept the assassins at bay, till the boats were 
got ready to convey the trembling crowd to the adjacent 
islands. The island of Cyprus, separated by a wide expanse 
of sea from the mainland of Greece, blessed with a delicious 
climate, and deserving, if any spot of the globe did, the ap- 
pellation of an earthly paradise, was for two months after it 
had elsewhere commenced, a stranger to rapine and blood- 
shed. But a body of troops sent by the Porte from the 



236 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



neighbouring provinces of Syria and Palestine kindled the 
conflagration. Several thousand Christians fell under the 
Ottoman sabres, and their wives and daughters were con- 
ducted in triumph to the Mussulman harems. The chief 
towns of Nicosia and Famagusta were sacked and burnt, 
the metropolitan bishops and thirty-six other ecclesiastics 
executed ; and in a few days the island presented a scene of 
ruin and desolation. 

Such a melancholy catalogue of cruelty presents no new 
phasis of the human mind. Similar scenes have from time 
to time been enacted during the chequered history of human 
affairs. If the passions be violently excited, it seems to be 
of little consequence by what means the excitement is pro- 
duced. The fury of democratic ambition, the fervour of re- 
ligious enthusiasm, the delusions of superstition, the chains 
of despotism, have all led to the same results. If these 
general causes are capable of producing a national frenzy, 
there are other passions, which act within an individual 
sphere, no less potent. The dismal tragedies enacted in do- 
mestic life, paint the dark passions of jealousy, ambition, 
revenge. Nations as well as individuals are restrained by 
the feeling and the recognition of great moral principles ; and 
when this restraint is lost or relaxed, by any cause what- 
ever, national or individual, crime is the inevitable result. 
The critical position of the Turkish empire, a formidable re- 
bellion in some of her most important provinces, which had 
been subject to Ottoman rule for upwards of four cen- 
turies, the secret agency of a foreign power at work in the 
very vitals of her dominions, whose hereditary ambition led 
her to exert the most base and fraudulent means to possess 
herself of Constantinople and the Bosphorus, together with 
the peculiar natural temperament of the Turks, may perhaps 
in some measure, lead us to understand the springs whence 
arose those horrible scenes enacted during the Greek revo- 
lution. Even recently, in more than one European state, 
subject to a constitutional government, and enjoying the 
blessings of the Christian religion, the same bloody drama 
has been exhibited. In the revolutions of the most enlight- 
ened states, deeds of cruelty, murder, confiscation, and exile, 
fill up the dark picture. 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



237 



The dreadful series of atrocities which had been commit- 
ted, and especially the murder of the Greek Patriarch, had 
the effect of spreading the insurrection through the whole of 
Greece. In the Morea, Attica, and the islands of the Archi- 
pelago, and indeed, wherever the Greek tongue was spoken, 
the flame spread far and wide. The Souliotes rose in Epirus : 
six thousand men were soon in arms in Thessaly : the moun- 
taineers of Olympus responded to the signal of freedom. 
Thirty thousand hardy mountaineers rose in the peninsula 
of Cassandra, and laid siege to Salonica, a city containing 
eighty thousand inhabitants. Meanwhile the necessities of 
the Greeks led to the formation of some sort of government 
amidst the general chaos. At Hydra a board of the prin- 
cipal inhabitants was formed which soon obtained direction 
of the island : a council of military chiefs at Calamata, gave 
something like unity to the operations of the land forces, 
and a senate was established at Athens. 

While the insurrection on the north of the Danube had 
received a deathblow, the success of the Greeks at sea re- 
stored their fortunes in the south. The Turkish fleet, which 
had sailed from the Dardanelles to check the incursions of the 
enemy, was totally destroyed, and the Greek cruisers ob- 
tained the full command of the Archipelago and the coasts 
of Greece. An insurrection broke out in Missolonghi which 
was immediately followed by the defection of the whole of 
iEtolia and Acarnania. 

On the mainland, the operations of the Greeks, at times 
brightened by success or clouded with disaster, were not so 
successful. At Valtezza, with very inadequate means they 
gained decisive success over the Ottomans ; and although 
such victories were achieved by very small bodies of men, 
they were of the utmost importance, as counterbalancing the 
moral effect of the disaster at Dragaschau. The peasants 
now joyfully flocked to the standard of the independents ; 
twenty thousand men were soon in arms in the Peloponne- 
sus ; and the Turks, cautiously keeping on the defensive, 
remained shut up in their fortresses ; two of which, Navarino 
and Napoli-di-Malvasia, capitulated from famine in the 
beginning of August. Meanwhile the Turks forced the 
passes of Cassandra, large bodies of horse scoured the 



238 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



plains of Thessaly and Boeotia, and spread fire and sword 
through their peaceful valleys. In several encounters in 
which the Greeks were successful the plan of the enemy's 
campaign had been entirely ruined ; but the most important 
affair, in a military point of view, was the siege and reduc- 
tion of Tripolitza. When the Greeks got possession of the 
town, a scene ensued which affixed the first dark stain on 
the cause of Greek independence. Previous to this, the 
Turkish commander, who confidently hoped for relief, had 
put to death eighty Christian priests, held as hostages in 
the town, which led to a frightful reprisal, and, as usual, 
involved the innocent and guilty in one promiscuous ruin. 
The wrongs and injuries of four centuries rose up in judg- 
ment against the Ottomans. The conquerors, mad with 
vindictive rage, spared neither age nor sex : the young and 
the old, the armed and the unarmed, men and women, 
Mahometans and Jews, were promiscuously massacred. The 
streets and houses were literally inundated with blood, and 
obstructed with heaps of dead bodies. The slaughter con- 
tinued the whole night by the light of the burning houses ; 
it went on all the next day ; and when it ceased by the ex- 
haustion of the victors, nine thousand bodies of all ages and 
sexes encumbered the streets of Tripolitza. 

The capture of Tripolitza was of the utmost importance 
to the cause of the insurgents. They found there a con- 
siderable train of artillery, arms, and ammunition in abun- 
dance, and immense treasures, the long accumulation of 
Ottoman rapine, which laid the foundation of some of the 
principal fortunes in the Morea. 

In the peninsula of Cassandra the Greeks were not so 
successful. Although they defended themselves bravely in 
their intrenchments, they were entirely routed, and three 
thousand fell under the Mussulman scimetars. Ten thou- 
sand women and children, with thirty thousand head of 
cattle, were taken and publicly sold in the market-place of 
Salonica. 

While Greece was thus the theatre of a frightful civil war, 
the Turks were threatened with external danger, both in 
the east and north, scarcely less alarming. The Persians, 
secretly instigated by the agents of the Czar, declared war 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE, 



239 



against Turkey, and immediately invaded the pashalic of 
Bagdad with thirty thousand men, which, however, was not 
attended with great success. 

Notwithstanding the pretended determination of the Em- 
peror Alexander to abstain from all interference in the 
Greek war, it was evident, that although the cabinet of St. 
Petersburg did not openly espouse, they at least secretly 
encouraged, the rebellion in Greece. A circumstance oc- 
curred at this- time, calculated to strengthen the impression 
that Russia was deeply implicated in the whole affair. M. 
Danesi, the banker to the Eussian embassy, was arrested 
ostensibly for a debt of £3,000, but, really for having fur- 
nished funds to the Greek insurgents ; and notwithstanding 
the remonstrances of the Eussian ambassador, who reclaimed 
him as forming part of the embassy, he was sentenced to be 
beheaded, from which he only escaped by going into exile. 
In the circumstances, it was not difficult for the Eussian 
ambassador to find causes of new quarrels; and hardly was 
this subject of discord appeased, when another and more 
serious one arose. The Porte issued an order that all neutral 
vessels passing through the Dardanelles should be searched, 
and it also prohibited the exportation of grain through the 
canal of the Bosphorus. These orders were vehemently 
opposed by the Eussian minister, as interfering with the rights 
of the Eussian merchants in the Black Sea. They were as 
strongly, and with more justice, maintained by the Sultan, 
as necessary to prevent succours being conveyed to the 
Greeks under the Eussian flag, and within the ac- 
knowledged rights of a belligerent power. The execution 
of the Patriarch, and the massacres in Constantinople and 
in other chief towns of the empire, were next made the sub- 
ject of complaint on the part of the Eussian ambassador. 
The Divan replied by complaining that Eussia had afforded 
an asylum at Odessa to the Greeks who had escaped from 
them; and urged that every government had a right to re- 
press rebellion among its subjects by every means in its 
power. M. Strogonoff next protested against the entry of 
the Turkish forces into the Principalities, which the Porte 
entirely disregarded; and he declared that as long as the 
Turkish government continued, the Russians would never 



240 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



refuse an asylum to any Greek who might demand it ; and 
that if the system of violence continued, he would break off 
all diplomatic intercourse with the Porte. These complaints, 
so arbitrary on the part of M. StrogonofF, were constantly 
answered by the Divan, that no foreign power had a right 
to interfere between the Turkish government and its own 
subjects, and that the insurrection could not be subdued in 
any other way. 

Matters at last came to such a point, that M. StrogonofF 
delivered the ultimatum of the Russian government to the 
Porte, which was required to be accepted unconditionally 
within eight days, failing which, he was to take his depar- 
ture with his whole suite. The conditions demanded by 
Russia, were reparation for the insults offered to the Greek 
religion, expiation for the murder of its Patriarch, and the 
adoption of a more humane system of warfare in the contest 
with its Christian subjects. If these terms w^ere not ac- 
ceded to within the prescribed time, the Porte was openly 
threatened with the utmost hostility of Russia, and the sup- 
port of the Greeks by the entire forces of Christendom. 
No answer was returned by the Divan to this menacing 
communication, and Baron StrogonofF applied for his pass- 
ports, which were delivered to him, and he set sail for 
Odessa on the last day of July, with his whole suite, and 
several Greek families who had taken refuge in the Russian 
embassy. After the Russian ambassador had taken his de- 
parture, the Sublime Porte despatched a messenger to St. 
Petersburg, with an answer to the ultimatum, ante-dated, 
26th July, the last day assigned for its reception. In this 
paper, which was a very able one, the Sultan does not deny 
some of the charges made against him, and founds his vindi- 
cation on the obvious necessity of extinguishing a dangerous 
rebellion, and the general arming of the Mussulmans, by the 
threatening and undeniable danger of the Ottoman empire. 
In this emergency, it was no easy matter to appease the 
popular fury ; and the Sultan himself was not safe from his 
bigoted and fanatical subjects. 

The commencement of the year 1822, was signalised by 
the formation of a regular government, and the proclama- 
tion of the national independence of Greece. The cause of 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



241 



the Greeks, however, sustained a grievous blow in the early 
part of the year, in the destruction of Ali Pasha. Although 
a Mahometan, he was at open war with the Sultan; and 
although distrusted by the Greeks and Souliotes, he had 
caused a most important diversion, by retaining a large pro- 
portion of the Ottoman forces around his impregnable walls. 
The Divan made extensive preparations for the approaching 
campaign. Chourchid Pasha was to unite the forces em- 
ployed in the siege of Janina, and conjointly with the Pasha 
of Salonica, to invade the Morea with sixty thousand men. 
With the view of keeping the Kussians in check, with whom 
a rupture was hourly expected, the army of the Grand 
Yizier, divided into two columns, was to move on Brahilow 
and Roustchuck. Thirty thousand men were collected 
among the warlike tribes of Asia to protect the frontiers of 
Georgia. At the same time, a respectable fleet was fitted 
out for the purpose of revictualling the forts which held out 
in the Morea, and afterwards to carry reinforcements to 
Candia and Crete. The fleet accomplished its destined pur- 
pose, but the forces of Chourchid were completely defeated 
with the loss of their whole artillery, baggage, and stores, 
and above 4,000 men slain and wounded. ^ 

The beautiful and prosperous island of Chios, which has 
gained a melancholy immortality from the dismal scene of 
bloodshed to which it was subjected, had hitherto remained 
a stranger to the insurrection; but a Greek squadron, hav- 
ing appeared off the island in the end of March, the flame 
burst forth. The Turks shut themselves up in the citadel, 
and the Greeks having taken possession of the heights 
which commanded it, a distant cannonade was kept up for 
ten days without any material effect on either side. Mean- 
while an army of thirty thousand fanatical Asiatics, was 
collected on the opposite coast, which was landed almost 
without resistance, upon the devoted island. The city was 
immediately occupied by the Turks, who commenced an in- 
discriminate massacre of the Christians, which lasted with- 
out intermission for the four following days. One of the 
finest cities in the Levant was reduced to ashes; nine thou- 
sand men were put to the sword ; the women and children 
were sold as slaves ; the very graves were rifled in search of 

Q 



242 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



treasures; and the bones of the dead were tossed about 
among the corpses of the recently slain. No further victims 
were left in the city, and the infuriated soldiery, increased 
by large bodies of Asiatics who had been lured from the 
shore by the light of the burning town, rushed in tumul- 
tuous bodies into the country, and commenced the work of 
destruction in the rural villages. Every corner of the island 
was ransacked; every human being that could be found, 
was slain or carried into captivity. Nothing was to be seen 
in the once smiling land but heaps of ruins, and a few ghastly 
inhabitants, wandering in a state of starvation among them. 
Ninety churches and forty villages were delivered to the 
flames; twenty-five thousand persons, chiefly full grown 
men, had been slain; forty-five thousand women and chil- 
dren had been dragged into slavery; and fifteen thousand 
had escaped into the neighbouring islands in the last stage 
of destitution and misery, where the greater part of them 
died of grief or starvation. For several months, the markets 
of Constantinople, Egypt, and Barbary, were so stocked 
with slaves, that their price fell a half ; and purchasers were 
attracted from the farthest parts of Asia and Africa, whither 
the Greek captives were scattered. 

The heroic citizens of Hydra resolved to strike a decisive 
blow at the Turkish fleet, which had been mainly instru- 
mental in conveying to Chios the savage crowd which had 
desolated the island. The cause of Christendom was to be 
defended by the torch, and the Greek fire again became 
more formidable to its enemies than its swords. The united 
fleets of Hydra and Spezzia assembled at Pasarra on the 
5th May. They amounted to fifty- six sail, the largest 
carrying twenty guns, among which were eight fire-ships. 
The Turkish fleet lay at anchor in a bay on the coast of 
Asia; and on the evening of the 31st an attack was resolved 
upon by the Greek chiefs. The first attack was not suc- 
cessful; but having received intelligence that the Ottoman 
squadron had been reinforced to thirty-eight sail, and that 
it was soon to unite with one of nearly equal strength from 
Egypt, it was resolved, during a dark night, to send in two 
fire-ships at the northern end of the straits between Chios 
and the Asiatic coast, where the Turkish fleet lay, while at 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



243 



each end two vessels cruised about to pick up such of their 
crews as might survive their perilous mission. Constantine- 
Canaris, of Pisarra, and George Pessinis, with thirty-two 
intrepid followers, volunteered their services. At midnight 
a breeze from the north having sprung up, the fire-ships 
were run in at once among the fleet. The fire-ship of 
Canaris grappled the prow of the Turkish admiral's ship, 
anchored at the head of the line, and instantly set her on 
fire. The Hydriote fire-ship was, with equal success, 
fastened to the other three-decker. The thirty-four heroes 
were then picked up by their comrades, sailed straight 
through the midst of the enemy's fleet, and got clear off 
without a wound. The fate of the two vessels was different. 
Canaris had fixed his grappling irons to the prow so firmly, 
that all efforts to detach them were vain, and in a few 
minutes the Admiral's three-decker was a sheet of flame. 
The fire-ship got detached from the other vessel, but not 
until she was rendered unfit for service ; and the fire-ship, 
floating through the fleet in a state of conflagration, excited 
universal consternation, and did great damage to several 
vessels. The scene which ensued on board the Admiral's 
vessel baffles all description. Two thousand three hundred 
persons on board had no means of escaping the flames but 
by plunging into the waves. None would approach the 
burning vessel for fear of being involved in the conflagration. 
Every ship in the fleet, many of which were on fire, was 
distinctly seen by the prodigious light of the burning three- 
decker, the flames of which rose like a pillar of fire into the 
heavens. At length she blew up with an explosion so tre- 
mendous, that every house for miles around was shaken to 
its foundation, every ship in the strait rocked as in a tem- 
pest; and the awful silence which immediately ensued, was 
broken by the clatter of spars, masts and fragments which 
fell upon the fleet. The Turks in Chios, overwhelmed with 
terror, threw themselves on their faces on the ground, im- 
ploring the mercy of the Almighty. The entire command 
of the Archipelago was thus abandoned to the Greeks. 
But the last wave of the desolating surge had yet to pass 
over Chios. The Turks renewed the massacre of the few 
Greeks who yet remained on the island ; and in the begin- 



244 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

ning of August there were not eighteen hundred of the 
original inhabitants left, and these were almost all old wo- 
men who had been concealed in caves, out of eighty-five 
thousand who peopled it before* 

Success seemed to alternate between the Turks and the 
insurgents in various parts of Greece. At last Chourchid 
Pasha broke up from Janina on the 17th June, and having 
effected a junction with the Pasha of Salonica and Thessaly, 
their united forces, thirty thousand strong, passed the defile 
of Thermopylae, without resistance, and appeared before 
Corinth, the citadel of which was delivered to them by the 
treachery of a Greek priest. The Ottoman army marched 
in triumph to Napoli di Eomania. But this was the limit 
of their success. Then appeared the vital importance of the 
destruction of the fleet at Chios to Greek independence. 
They found in Napoli nothing but a starving garrison. The 
surrounding plains could afford no support for their numer- 
ous cavalry. In a few days the want of provisions became 
so great that no resource remained but the dead bodies of 
the horses. Meanwhile, the Greeks, assembling from the 
plains, the mountains, and the islands, surrounded the Turks 
with twelve thousand men, who rendered all attempt at 
foraging or levying supplies impossible. The Turkish 
general proposed to enter into a capitulation for the evacua- 
tion of the Morea. The Greek chiefs declined, upon which 
the Turks resolved to cut their way through the enemy. 
The Turkish columns, entangled in rugged, narrow and 
broken passes, were entirely cut up ; and altogether, when 
the Ottoman army left the Peloponnesus, there were not 
more than two thousand left to reinforce the garrison of 
Napoli di Eomania, and seven thousand around Corinth, the 
poor remains of thirty thousand, of whom two thirds were 
cavalry, who had entered the country six weeks before. 
Chourchid Pasha died of grief, just in time to avoid the bow- 
string of the Sultan, which had been sent to despatch him. 
The Acropolis of Athens surrendered by capitulation, which 
the Greeks basely violated, and massacred the greater part 
of the garrison. This outrage materially weakened the in- 
terest which Europe now felt in their cause. 

The insurrection was daily assuming more formidable 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



245 



proportions in Cyprus and Candia. The towns and villages 
had disappeared, or existed only in ruins, the crops were 
destroyed, and the vine and olive trees were rooted up. The 
monks were in an especial manner the objects of the vindic- 
tive cruelty of the Turks : they stabled their horses in the 
churches, and actually bridled and saddled some of these 
unfortunate ecclesiastics, and forcing them to go on all fours, 
rode on them in derision, till they dropped down dead of 
fatigue. In Crete the Turks were in greater strength than 
in any other island, but the mountains and plains remained 
in the hands of the insurgents. 

The most important conquest which the Greeks had yet 
achieved was the fall of Napoli di Komania, which was 
carried by escalade on the night of the 12th December. 
Here for the first time, a capitulation was well observed. The 
Ottoman garrison, consisting of twelve hundred men, were, 
by the assistance of the English frigate Cambrian, conveyed 
to the Asiatic coast. The Greeks found immense military 
resources in this fortress. Four hundred pieces of bronze 
cannon, and large stores of ammunition, fell into their hands. 

Far from being intimidated by the bad success of their 
former expeditions, the Divan fitted out a vast armament of 
ninety sail, including four line of battle ships, which set sail 
for Napoli di Komania, with ample stores to victual all the 
fortresses in the Morea. The Greek squadron, consisting 
of sixty sail, the largest of which carried only twenty guns, 
watched this formidable force at a distance ; and the Turkish 
admiral was so much intimidated that he did not venture to 
enter the gulf of Napoli. But an opportunity, fatal to the 
Turks, soon occurred, in which Canaris displayed all the 
energy and daring of his character. The Turkish fleet was 
lying at anchor in the bay of Tenedos, waiting orders from 
Constantinople. Two fire-ships, one of which was com- 
manded by Canaris, and the other by a Hydriot hero, and 
manned by seventeen of the seamen who had burned the 
Admiral's vessel at Chios, were admitted within the Turkish 
line, under the disguise of Turkish colours. The fire-ships 
were immediately fastened to two three-deckers, one of which 
was so strongly grappled that it caught the flames, and with 
sixteen hundred persons on board, blew up soon after with. 



246 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



a terrific explosion. The Turkish ships cut their cables and 
made for the Dardanelles ; two frigates ran ashore and were 
wrecked in the flight, and the entire command of the sea 
was abandoned to the Greeks. It was now intimated by 
the captain of the Cambrian, that the British government, 
guided in its foreign policy by Mr. Canning, would recog- 
nise the Greek blockades. 

Thus terminated the campaign of 1822. When the po- 
pulation of Greece, which did not exceed six hundred thou- 
sand souls, is taken into consideration, it seems remarkable 
how they could thus confront the whole weight of the Otto- 
man empire, and come off victorious in the strife. The su- 
periority and daring of the Greek seamen, and the rugged 
and inaccessible nature of the country in which the operations 
of a regular army are difficult, if not impossible, gave them 
great advantages. But this is not alone sufficient to account 
for their success. The desperate nature of the conflict in 
which they were engaged ; the devoted courage and indomi- 
table firmness which was everywhere exhibited in a contest 
emphatically one of death or victory, enabled the small but 
heroic bands to triumph over their more numerous and 
scarcely less courageous enemies. It was impossible that 
any people, how brave and heroic soever, could long continue 
a contest which required such a drain of inhabitants. Al- 
though the war had continued only two years, two hundred 
thousand Greeks had perished by the sword or famine, or 
been sold into slavery. 

The disasters which the Turks this year sustained did not 
proceed solely from the swords or the torches of the Greeks. 
Nature seemed to have conspired with man for the ruin of 
the empire of the Osmanlis. The cities of Aleppo and Anti- 
och were thrown down by a violent earthquake, and twelve 
thousand persons were buried in their ruins. Another shock 
shortly succeeded which entirely destroyed the city of 
Aleppo, and drove all its citizens who escaped instant death 
into the adjoining country. About the same time the 
Cholera Morbus, since so well known in Western Europe, 
made its appearance in Bagdad. The Persians defeated the 
Turks in a pitched battle, and the victors advanced to Bas- 
sora. The Pasha of Acre deeming the dissolution of the 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



247 



Turkish empire at hand, revolted against the Porte, and 
hoisted the standard of rebellion on his ramparts. Jassay 
was the scene of a terrible conflagration. The unruly Jani- 
zaries, during the night of the 10th August, set the city on 
fire, and immediately commenced a general massacre of the 
Christian inhabitants. Several thousand Christians fell 
victims to their capricious tyranny ; and one hundred and 
sixty of the assassins, in a state of intoxication, perished in 
the flames which they themselves had raised. Of the city, 
which contained two thousand houses, only one hundred and 
fifty escaped destruction. 

The Greek government made an earnest application to 
the Congress of Yerona to be admitted into the European 
family, and taken under the protection of the Western powers. 
It met, however, with no success. The dread of encourag- 
ing the revolutionary principle was a reasonable pretext for 
refusing the demands of the Greeks, for it had met to com- 
bat that very principle in Spain and Italy. Humanity called 
for the interference of the different European powers to put 
an end to the bloodshed which desolated Greece. Such an 
interference would have been as reasonable now as at a sub- 
sequent stage in the struggle ; but the Congress decided, and 
formally acknowledged, the right of the Sultan to exclude 
all foreign intervention between himself and his subjects, 
whether Christian or Mahometan. This seemed decisive ; 
but Russia had her own separate grounds of discussion with 
Turkey. She demanded the performance of certain stipu- 
lations of the treaty of Bucharest, with reference to the in- 
ternal government of the Christian provinces of Turkey in 
the north-east, to which the Divan in part conceded ; and 
on the other hand, the Porte called upon the Emperor to 
surrender the fortresses on the Black sea, which, by the same 
treaty, he had engaged to deliver up, but which, for four- 
teen years, had been retained in violation of these engage- 
ments. It appeared evident that these disputes would form 
the ground of future quarrels. 

Absolute as the Turkish Sultans are, they find themselves 
circumscribed and guided by public opinion, on important 
occasions, no less than the governments of Western Europe. 
Its oscillations, however, in the east, are more violent, and its 



248 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



decisions more sudden and sanguinary. It was a constant 
subject of complaint with the Janizaries and the Asiatic 
troops that the new system of government would ruin every- 
thing, that the treatment of the insurgents was far too gentle, 
that the old system should be restored, and the infidels 
every where destroyed with fire and sword. The Sultan in 
vain endeavoured to appease the public clamour by the daily 
exhibition of a number of Christian heads, or the heads of 
Pashas supposed to favour his schemes of reform, at the 
Seraglio gate. The Sultan, at last satisfied that the public 
voice could no longer be disregarded, resolved upon a con- 
cession. The Mufti and the Grand Yizier were deposed, 
and Halet Effendi exiled. New ministers were chosen by 
the Janizaries, who extorted an order from the Sultan for 
the execution of Halet Effendi, who was strangled and his 
head exposed at the Seraglio gate, with an inscription charg- 
ing him with every imaginable crime. The leaders of the 
Janizary party for a time got the entire command of the 
government. 

A frightful catastrophe occurred at Constantinople in the 
spring of 1823, which added to the sinister presentiments 
with which men's minds were filled. A dreadful fire broke 
out in the vicinity of Tophani, the imperial cannon foundry, 
which spread with incredible rapidity. A violent wind, 
which frequently changed its direction, spread the flames on 
all sides. The loss was immense : -upwards of 8,000 houses 
were consumed, 1,200 pieces of cannon, immense trains of 
artillery waggons, and several entire barracks, were the prey 
of the flames ; above 1,000 persons perished, and 40,000 
were thrown houseless and starving upon the streets. The 
Mussulmans, struck with consternation at the magnitude of 
the disaster, exclaimed, " God is with the infidels ! " Others, 
imbued with the fanaticism of the period, maintained that 
the only way to propitiate the Almighty was to massacre the 
Christians. But there were others of more humane senti- 
ments ; and many voices, especially of women, were heard 
amid the flames to exclaim, " God has avenged the inno- 
cent blood shed at Chios." 

The Sultan commenced the campaign of 1823 with the 
most vigorous measures. New levies were called for the 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



249 



army : the navy was put into an efficient state of repair : 
the ponderous ships of the line, unfitted for navigating the 
shoals, straits, and deeply indented bays of the Archipelago, 
were disbanded, and by the end of April, a powerful 
squadron of frigates and smaller vessels was ready for sea. 

The bond of Greek insurrection was, at this period, more 
nearly dissolved by internal discord than by the arms of the 
Turks. The great national object of the revolution seemed 
to be forgotten. The military leaders desired to be in- 
dependent, and each, like guerilla chiefs, to carry on the 
war on his own account; and innumerable jealousies existed 
among the persons intrusted with the administration of 
affairs. The deputies of the National Assembly could not 
submit to meet in a room, and they held their deliberations 
in a garden. But the spirit of patriotism did not animate 
the members. Angry messages, mingled with threats, were 
conveyed from one to the other. Even the leaders, Mavro- 
cordato and Ipsilanti, were not on speaking terms. Only a 
small number could be secured for the executive council; 
and such as it was, its authority was only established in the 
islands. On the mainland, the election of representatives 
was found to be impracticable, and the authority of the 
chiefs was alone obeyed within their respective bounds. It 
was, however, agreed to limit the authority of the military 
commanders, and it was decreed that they were to hold 
their power only within the duration of their respective ex- 
peditions. 

The plan for the next campaign, arranged by the Divan, 
was on a very magnificent scale; but the execution was far 
from equalling the design. The Greeks were to be attacked 
on all sides with an overwhelming force, while a fleet of a 
hundred and twenty sail was to sweep the ^Egean sea, and 
reduce the revolted islands to subjection. Two circum- 
stances, however, were overlooked of vital importance to the 
issue of the campaign; the danger of famine in a country 
desolated by civil war, and the exhaustion of the Mussul- 
man population, from whom alone the soldiers were drawn. 
In consequence of the operation of these two circumstances, 
the Greeks were saved from destruction, at a time when 
their own divisions brought them to the very verge of ruin* 



250 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



To oppose the Turks the Greek government decreed the 
formation of an army of 50,000 men; and their fleet con- 
sisted of 98 vessels of war, bearing 1,760 guns, and manned 
by 10,560 admirable seamen. 

The first events of the campaign in Epirus, Euboea, 
Thessaly, and the Morea, were eminently in favour of the 
Greeks. The Turks were repulsed in every encounter. 
Attica was entirely evacuated, and the important strong- 
hold of Acro-Corinthus capitulated, after having exhausted 
all its means of subsistence. 

The unhappy divisions which had arisen among the 
Greeks, now rose to such a pitch in the Morea, that the 
rival captains, instead of bearing their united strength 
against the enemy, took up arms against each other. Civil 
war aided in the desolation of a country afflicted by disas- 
ters, and threatened with many dangers. Blood was shed 
in the streets of Tripolitza between the adverse factions. 
The president resigned his office; and Colocotroni withdrew 
to Napoli di Komania, from whence he directed the whole 
military operations of Continental Greece. A more heroic 
spirit prevailed among the mountains of Albania. Owing 
to the overwhelming force of the Ottomans, it was evidently 
impossible to Bozzaris to effect anything by open force, and 
he resolved on a nocturnal attack, by which it was hoped 
the enemy, who kept a very bad look-out, might be sur- 
prised. Bozzaris selected a Souliote battalion, well known 
as one of the bravest in Greece, and after unfolding to 
them his designs, they resolved to accompany him, and ex- 
pressed their determination to conquer or die. He selected 
from the battalion one hundred and fifty of the bravest and 
most active, whom he proposed to head in person, while the 
remainder of his troops were divided into three columns, to 
distract the enemy by assaults in different quarters. The 
column selected for attack, was the Turkish advanced 
guard, five thousand strong, which was encamped in the 
bottom of a valley, intersected by vineyards and ditches. 
Buried in sleep, without either sentinels or entrenchments, 
the Turks were suddenly surprised by the swords of the 
Souliotes which gleamed amongst them. 

The voice of Bozzaris was heard above the tumult of con- 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



251 



flict, exhorting his companions to conquer. Knowing his 
voice, the Mussulmans directed all their shots to the quarter 
whence it came, one of which wounded the chief below the 
girdle. The attack of another division completed the con- 
fusion of the Ottomans, and before daybreak they fled in all 
directions. Eight hundred men were slain on the spot; 
and a thousand prisoners, eighteen standards, seven guns, 
and immense military stores, were taken by the Souliotes, 
who did not lose one hundred and fifty men. But they 
sustained an irreparable loss in the death of Bozzaris, who 
was shot through the head as the day began to dawn. Be- 
fore he breathed his last he had the satisfaction of seeing the 
enemy fly, and he died exhorting his countrymen to shed 
every drop of their blood in defence of their religion and 
their country. "In this glorious battle," said a decree 
published by the government, " died the immortal General 
Bozzaris, and went to the regions of eternity, to darken by 
the rays of his exploits, the lustre of former heroes." 

The Pasha of Scodra, having recovered from the defeat 
which he received from Bozzaris at Carpenitza, forced the 
defdes of the mountains, and effected the junction of his 
army with that of Omer-Vrione. The united forces, twenty 
thousand strong, sat down before Missolonghi. Its garrison 
consisted only of three thousand regular troops, and about 
double that number of armed inhabitants. The besieging 
force was also supported by three large frigates and twelve 
brigs, which blockaded the town by sea. The defenders 
were inspired with the most sanguine hopes of success, and 
their efforts were heroic and successful. The Pasha, after 
the loss of half his army, raised the siege, after cutting down 
six thousand olive trees, destroying his ammunition, burying 
his cannon, and he left all his provisions to the enemy. 

Military operations were suspended in Candia during the 
whole winter of 1822, in consequence of the violence of the 
plague, which in the garrison of Canea alone carried off 
five thousand of the population. The Greeks having re- 
ceived an additional supply of arms and ammunition, Tombazi, 
who was invested with the command, compelled the governor 
of Kipamos to capitulate; and with this success, the insur- 
rection spread into the mountains around Khadeno, which 



252 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



had hitherto remained quiet. The Turks were completely 
overpowered ; but five thousand Egyptian troops sent by 
the Pasha of Egypt changed the fortunes of the day. Great 
cruelties were committed by both parties : the Greeks mas- 
sacred their prisoners, while the Turks inhumanly smoked 
to death six hundred women and children who had taken 
refuge in the vast natural grotto of Stonarambella. The 
Greeks, as was fatally proved in the sequel, although capa- 
ble of withstanding the tumultuary levies of the Turks, 
could not resist in the open field the disciplined battalions 
of Egypt. 

The domestic dissensions of the Greeks, which had par- 
alysed their operations, during the year, were carried to such 
a length, that the different members of the government were 
at war with each other. The collection of the revenue en- 
tirely ceased; the public treasury was empty; the chiefs 
levied contributions on their own account, with which they 
maintained their troops; and Greece, while struggling for 
existence with a powerful enemy, was exposed to the horrors 
of a civil war. 

Meanwhile a general interest and sympathy in behalf of 
the Greeks, appeared in numerous public meetings in Eng- 
land, France and Germany, presided over by persons of 
high rank and consideration, and subscriptions to a consider- 
able amount were raised to aid them in the cause of inde- 
pendence. At this time also, several individuals went to 
Greece, to render their services in its behalf, eminent alike 
by their rank, their courage, and their genius. Among 
these were M. Blaquiere and Colonel Leicester Stanhope. 
Lord Byron, who arrived in Argostoli, in the bay of Cepha- 
lonia, on the 3d August, generously gave to the cause a for- 
tune, and the lustre of an immortal name. 

The divisions among the leaders threatened an entire 
dissolution of society. The legislative body transferred the 
seat of government to Napoli di Romania in order to dis- 
solve the military faction. They succeeded in their efforts, 
and on the 14th July, a general amnesty was proclaimed, 
which at length put an end to the disastrous dissensions. 
The English cruisers, in obedience to orders received from 
government, admitted the Greek blockade ; by the exertions 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



253 



of the Greek committee in London, a loan of £800,000 was 
obtained by the government, at the rate of £59 sterling 
paid for £100 stock; and although the government only 
obtained £280,000 for £800,000 debt contracted, the 
armaments by sea and land, but for this seasonable supply, 
must have been dissolved, from the want of funds for their 
support. 

The Turkish empire, at this crisis, exhibited its wonted 
elasticity. The Sultan had learned to appreciate the value 
of the Egyptian troops, who were armed and disciplined 
after the European fashion ; and the most tempting offers 
were held out to the Pasha to induce him to engage heartily 
in the contest. Ibrahim Pasha, who had already subdued 
Candia, was to transport a large force to the Morea, while 
his fleet was to blockade its harbours, and secure the sub- 
sistence of the troops, and the whole force of Continental 
Turkey was to march on western Greece and Missolonghi. 
In all, above one hundred thousand men were directed by 
sea and land against the infant state, twenty thousand of 
which were the disciplined battalions of Egypt. The first 
effort of Ibrahim was against the island of Casos, which he 
very soon subdued. The Turkish fleet, consisting of an eighty 
gun ship, two of sixty-four guns, six frigates, ten corvettes, 
and twenty brigs, with thirty transports having on board 
fourteen thousand regular troops, and a crowd of fierce 
Asiatics, attacked the island of Ipsara, which at this period 
contained only fifteen thousand inhabitants. This island, 
which had been the abode of liberty and independence, had 
obtained a very high degree of prosperity ; but after a heroic 
resistance, the town was sacked and burnt, and the whole 
inhabitants put to the sword. The spoil made by the Turks 
was immense. Two hundred pieces of cannon, great stores 
of powder, and a beautiful flotilla of ninety vessels, fell into 
the hands of the Ottomans. Five hundred heads and eleven 
hundred ears were sent to Constantinople, which were dis- 
played in ghastly rows at the gates of the Seraglio. Ten 
females only were made slaves ; for the women, in a heroic 
spirit, drowned themselves with their infants to avoid be- 
coming the spoil of the victors. 

After an unsuccessful attack upon the island of Samos, 



254 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



the Turkish fleet effected a junction with the Egyptian arma- 
ment in the gulf of Boudroum, the ancient Halicarnassus, on 
the 25th August, and the fleets together amounted to one 
line-of-battle ship, 25 frigates, 25 corvettes, each mount- 
ing from 24 to 28 guns, 50 brigs and schooners, many of 
them carrying from 18 to 24 guns, and 240 transports. The 
land forces consisted of 12,000 regular infantry, drilled and 
organized after the European fashion, 2,000 Albanian light 
infantry, 2,000 cavalry, 700 gunners and sappers, and 150 
pieces of heavy and field artillery. The armament had on 
board 80,000 sailors and soldiers, and above 2,500 cannon. 
To oppose this mighty force the Greek admiral had only 7 
sail, manned by 5,000 sailors, and bearing, at the utmost, 
800 guns. 

The Greek admiral, Miaulis, notwithstanding this, great 
disproportion of force, advanced to meet the enemy. Their 
fire-ships, as formerly, struck terror into the Ottomans. 
Great part of their fleet was burned or destroyed, and the 
Capitan Pasha ran into the Dardanelles. The two fleets 
were almost constantly engaged until the 13th November, 
when Miaulis engaged the Egyptian squadron in a general 
battle. Such w T as his success, that thirteen vessels and fif- 
teen transports were burned or destroyed. Ibrahim steered 
for Ehodes, and took shelter in the bay of Marmorica for the 
winter. This naval campaign was the most disastrous which 
the Mahometans had yet sustained. Seven of their largest 
ships, and fifty sail of transports were taken or destroyed, 
an admiral and four thousand seamen slain, and five hun- 
dred Arabs were carried prisoners to Napoli. In short, this 
campaign, besides a great part of their fleet, cost the Turks, 
without gaining any corresponding advantage, fifteen thou- 
sand men. 

The campaigns by land this year, although not unchequered 
by disaster, terminated to the advantage of the Greeks. 
But their country was gradually relapsing into a state of 
nature. The whole surface of Western Hellas, from the 
mountains of Agrapho to the gates of Missolonghi, was one 
vast scene of desolation, presenting to the eye only unculti- 
vated fields and burnt hamlets. The mountains of Thessaly 
and Boeotia had become a perfect wilderness : the inhabi- 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



255 



tants were reduced to half their number ; the treasury was 
empty, the troops unpaid, and the taxes incapable of collec- 
tion. The most determined might have felt appalled ; the 
most sanguine could scarcely anticipate a successful resist- 
ance ; yet not a voice was raised for capitulation, and the 
Greeks still bore aloft the standard of independence. 

A census published by the government in 1824, exhibits 
a curious picture of the state of Greece. The population of 
Athens was 9,040 souls, and the gross revenue of Attica, 
collected in eight months, from July 1824 to February 1825, 
only £2,000 ! In the days of Pericles, Athens contained 
21,000 freemen and 400,000 slaves ; and the gross revenue 
of Athens, after the battle of Cheeronea, when all its foreign 
colonies had been lost, was £220,000, equivalent to at least 
£500,000 a-year of our money. The population of Athens 
is now (1854,) 30,000, and it is annually and rapidly in- 
creasing. With these facts before us, and when we con- 
sider that the Mahometan population of European Turkey, 
scarcely equal to a third or perhaps a fourth of the Christians, 
is gradually decreasing, while the Christian population is 
on the increase, it does not appear to be going too far to 
predict, ere long, the entire ascendency of the Christians 
in Turkey, without the aid either of external or internal 
violence. 

The gloomy prospects which had hitherto surrounded 
the Greek cause, began, about the beginning of 1825, to be 
partially dispelled. The authority of the central govern- 
ment was established ; a new loan had been contracted in 
London for £2,000,000, at the rate of £55^, paid for £100 
of debt acknowledged; several corps of regular soldiers 
were established ; and altogether, the cause of independence 
received the impulse of a united and regular administration. 

The Pasha of Egypt was now the most formidable enemy 
which the Greeks had to encounter ; and the force which 
he was preparing to put at the disposal of his son was im- 
mense. Thirty thousand Arabs had been trained and dis- 
ciplined under foreign officers, in the European manner. 
Three expeditions, each consisting of eight thousand men, 
were successively to sail from Alexandria, to convey this 
force to Candia and Ehodes ; while the efforts of the Turks, 



256 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



with twenty thousand men, were to be entirely confined to 
the siege of Missolonghi. These formidable preparations 
were supported by a powerful fleet to which, it was antici- 
pated, the Greeks could make no serious resistance. 

The Egyptian armament crossed the sea without opposi- 
tion. The first division sailed from Alexandria on the 20th 
February, and by the 21st March twelve thousand Arabs 
were encamped around the fortress of Modon. Navarino, 
which is about two leagues distant from Modon, had been 
reconnoitred by Ibrahim, to which he resolved to lay siege. 
The Greeks, in order to intercept the enemy, collected 
twelve thousand men, and took post between Navarino and 
Modon. Then, for the first time, the superiority of the 
Egyptian arms and discipline became apparent. Ibrahim 
pierced the centre of the enemy with fixed bayonets, a wea- 
pon to which the Greeks had been hitherto strangers, while 
at the same time the horse, dashing up a ravine deemed 
inaccessible, completed the rout. Navarino was reduced, 
and the Egyptian forces were established in a solid way in 
the Morea. At the same time, Eedschid Pasha appeared 
with all his forces before Missolonghi. Meanwhile many 
brilliant exploits were performed at sea by the Greeks, in 
which their fireships were fatal alike to the Turks and the 
Egyptians. 

By the acquisition of Navarino, Ibrahim had secured an 
excellent base of operations, communicating readily by sea 
with his reserves in Suda and Alexandria. His next move- 
ments were to extend himself in the interior ; and by the 
superior discipline of his troops, he soon gained the entire 
command of the Morea. The Greek chiefs never ventured 
again to meet the enemy in large bodies ; but they occupied 
the mountains, and cut off several Arab detachments which 
were ravaging the plains, from which Ibrahim, after burn- 
ing the houses, drove away the inhabitants as slaves without 
mercy. A market was opened at Modon for the sale of 
captives of both sexes, who were crowded in dungeons, 
loaded with irons, unmercifully beaten by their guards, and 
often murdered in pure wanton cruelty during the night. 

While these operations were shaking the Greek power in 
the Morea, Eedschid Pasha had commenced his operations 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE, 



257 



before Missolonghi. For some time after the arrival of the 
Turks, the operations on both sides consisted of petty skir- 
mishes only ; and indeed the greater part of the summer 
had been spent, without any impression having been made 
by the besiegers on the fortress. Having received a rein- 
forcement of five thousand men and great stores of siege 
equipage, the Turkish commander prepared for a general 
assault. After a sanguinary conflict, the Turks forced their 
way into the city, but were finally repulsed ; cind the Greeks 
afterwards retaliated upon the besiegers by repeated and 
successful sorties. In a subsequent assault, the Pasha was 
equally unfortunate, and was at last compelled to abandon 
the camp. Peremptory orders, however, were despatched 
to Redschid to renew the siege ; but though reinforced by a 
body of disciplined Egyptians, he failed in every attempt, 
and retired during the rains to the heights of Mount Ara- 
cynthus. Missolonghi was the principal stronghold of the 
Greeks ; and the Sultan, irritated rather than intimidated 
by his succession of disasters, and regarding the fall of Mis- 
solonghi as an event with which the termination of the Greek 
war was wound up, was at the same time making the most 
formidable preparations for its subjugation. He determined 
on a combined attack on the place with the whole forces of 
Turkey, Egypt, and Barbary. With this view the Capitan 
Pasha received orders to put to sea directly from Alexandria, 
with all the troops the Pasha of Egypt could collect, which 
were to be placed under the command of Ibrahim, who was 
to bring up all he could assemble from the Morea. Ten 
thousand infantry, eight hundred regulars, and twelve hun- 
dred irregulars, were embarked on board a fleet of one hun- 
dred and thirty-five vessels, of which, seventy -nine were of 
war, including nine frigates, and with these formidable forces 
he cast anchor in the bay of Navarino, on the 5th Novem- 
ber. Meanwhile Ibrahim, with four thousand men, pro- 
ceeded towards Missolonghi, and united his forces with 
those of Redschid in the middle of December. The garri- 
son of Missolonghi consisted of 5,000 warriors; and its 
original population of 3,000 had been raised to 13,000, by 
the arrival of refugees, who confided in its natural and arti- 
ficial strength. The Greeks, on their side, had received 

R 



258 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



reinforcements of 1,500 men, and large supplies of provi- 
sions and ammunition. In this position they anxiously 
expected the general assault with which they were threat- 
ened from the combined forces of Turkey and Egypt, now 
mustering 25,000 land troops besides the sea forces. 

This siege, like that of Numantia and Saragossa, is me- 
morable for the bravery and resolution of its defenders, the 
sufferings of the inhabitants, and the romantic courage with 
which a part of its garrison cut their way through the 
enemy's entrenchments. In the most desperate circum- 
stances they never flinched for an instant, — not a thought 
of surrender had crossed the minds of the devoted garrison. 
As far as the eye could reach, the sea was covered with 
Mussulman pendants ; and the daily increasing number of 
batteries and field-works in the plain, studded with the 
wrecks of the siege, gave fearful note of the preparations 
making against them. Yet, in these awful circumstances 
they refused an offer of capitulation even when transmitted 
to them by a naval British officer, whose vessel was at anchor 
in the bay. 

Already the want of provisions and powder was severely 
felt by the garrison ; and the Greek fleet, which was ex- 
pected with supplies, had not made its appearance. At last 
the fleet of Miaulis approached ; but the force of the Turks 
was such as to exclude all possibility of a direct attack, and 
before he could be reinforced, the fate of Missolonghi was 
decided. For a number of days no rations had been distri- 
buted ; the firing had driven every kind of fish from the shore, 
and the people subsisted on cats, rats, raw hides, and sea- 
weed, which they collected under the very fire of the enemy. 
Absolute famine stared the wretched inhabitants in the face ; 
the earth was strewed with the wounded, the sick, the fam- 
ishing, and the dying, for whom there was neither food, nor 
beds, nor medicines, nor assistance. Three days more, and 
not a living soul would remain within the walls from abso- 
lute famine. Yet even in these desperate circumstances 
they refused to capitulate ; and if they were forced to 
abandon the place, it should be with arms in their hands. 

In these circumstances a census was taken of the remain- 
ing inhabitants, and it was found that there were three 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



259 



thousand men capable of bearing arms, a thousand unfit to 
wield them, and five thousand women and children. De- 
spairing of all relief except in their own valour, they formed 
the desperate resolution of opening a passage through the 
ranks of the besieging army. This extraordinary and 
heroic attempt met with a success which could hardly have 
been anticipated. The women generally put on male attire, 
and carried pistols and daggers in their girdles, and wea- 
pons were given to such boys as had strength to use them. 
A Bulgarian deserter having revealed the design, Ibrahim 
made every disposition to frustrate it. Presently the un- 
avoidable noise attending the movement of this mass of hu- 
man beings, and the w 7 ailing of women and children, at- 
tracted Ibrahim's attention to the quarter where the sortie 
was to be made, and a violent fire of grape and musketry 
was opened upon it. But the onset was irresistible. 
Neither ditch nor breastwork, the fire of grape and musketry, 
nor the bayonets of the Arabs, could resist the desperate 
shock. A wide opening was made in the besiegers' lines, 
through which the helpless crowd in rear immediately be- 
gan to pour in great numbers, and sanguine hopes were en- 
tertained that the passage was secured and the danger over. 
In this hope they w r ere disappointed. In the enthusiasm of 
victory, the warriors, instead of dividing into two columns, 
as they had been ordered, pushed across the plain in one 
solid mass. The cavalry fell on the unarmed multitude in * 
rear, and cut many to pieces. Great numbers rushed in 
wild despair back to the town, which they entered the same 
time as the besiegers. A general massacre immediately 
commenced; and such was the desperation with which the 
Greeks fought, that the loss of the Turks on that awful 
night was fully equal to their own. Ibrahim boasted that he 
had collected three thousand heads, and sold four thousand 
women and children ; but great numbers of the latter w 7 ere 
purchased and restored to their families, by the benevolence 
of the Christians which, by this memorable siege, was now 
strongly aroused over all Europe. 

Such was the fall of Missolonghi. The general sympathy 
of Europe could not fail to be roused in favour of the de- 
voted garrison; and indeed, it was this warm sympathy 



260 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



which mainly contributed to the success of the Phil- 
hellenic Societies which had sprung up in every country 
of Europe, and ultimately rendered public opinion so strong 
as to lead to the treaty of London, the battle of Navarino, 
and ultimately the establishment of Greek independence. 
The consumpt of human life during the six campaigns, ren- 
dered it impossible that the Greeks could long continue the 
contest; and money was even more awanting than men. 
So strong was the feeling of despondency which prevailed, 
that the representatives of the nation signed a solemn act, 
placing the nation under the absolute protection of Great 
Britain. The memorial was well received by the British 
government, who resolved to take the initiative in the trans- 
action and making the liberation of Greece the joint act of 
the maritime powers, and thus prevent it from falling under 
the exclusive protection of any one of their number. 

The Emperor Nicholas, who had just mounted the throne 
of Russia, closed with the proposal of erecting Greece into 
a semi-independent state, but he declined admitting any 
mediation of the other powers in regard to his own differ- 
ences with the Porte, which, he alleged, Russia was able to 
adjust for herself. 

Never since the commencement of the revolution, had 
such a gloom hung over the nation as in the end of 1826. 
The government was in the most miserable state. The 
revenue which in 1825, had been £90,000, had sunk to 
£25,000. The treasury contained only five shillings. The 
sailors receiving no pay were in a state of mutiny ; and it 
was only by some loans received from the Philhellenes in 
Western Europe, that the armaments were kept afloat. 
The enemy also felt the pressure of famine and the sword. 
Of 24,000 Arabs who had been shipped from Alexandria 
within two years, only eight thousand were alive. Partial 
successes, which determined nothing, alternately favoured 
both parties, and served only to increase their mutual ex- 
haustion. 

It was evident that the cause of the Greeks was now des- 
perate. For seven years had they contended single- 
handed with the whole Ottoman empire. If they had suf- 
fered many reverses, it was not from their inability to con- 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



261 



tend with the Turks, but from the overwhelming weight of 
the Egyptians, who interfered with decisive effect at the 
close of the struggle. But if the Turks had brought one 
powerful ally to their assistance, the Greeks engaged allies 
more powerful still. The result was the conclusion of the 
treaty of 6th July, 1827, between England, France, and 
Kussia, which formed the corner-stone of Greek inde- 
pendence. 

The object of the treaty was declared to be " the recon- 
ciliation of the Greeks and Turks." An armistice was to 
be absolutely insisted on as a preliminary to the opening of 
any negociation. The terms proposed to the Sultan were, 
that he should still retain a nominal sovereignty over 
Greece, but receive from them a fixed annual tribute, to be 
collected by the Greek authorities, in the nomination of 
whom the Sultan was to have a voice. All the Mussulman 
property in Greece was to be abandoned upon receiving an 
indemnity, and the fortresses were to be given up to the 
Greek troops. The Porte was requested to declare within 
a month, his acceptance of these terms. 

When this treaty was intimated to the Sultan, he mani- 
fested the utmost astonishment and indignation at its con- 
tents, and declared his fixed determination to adhere to the 
last in his endeavours to reduce his rebellious subjects to 
submission. The Porte founded its rejection of the proposal 
of the allied governments, upon the right to suppress re- 
bellion within his own dominions, and that no foreign 
government had any right to interfere between them. 
These general principles, the correctness of which cannot 
be disputed, did not suit the views of the allied powers. 
They had resolved to establish the independence of Greece ; 
and how patriotic soever may have been the general senti- 
ment of Europe, the true solution of the joint interference 
of England, France, and Kussia, will be found in the ulte- 
rior designs of the latter, and the jealousy of the two 
former powers. 

Whatever may have been the civil and social improve- 
ments arising to Greece, by the establishment of its inde- 
pendence, it is evident that a power of such limited extent 
can never exercise any visible influence over the destinies 



262 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



of the East; and it has lately been shown, that Greece, 
instead of forming a barrier, how trifling soever, to Russia, 
is the only state which the Emperor of Russia has been 
able to employ, to aid him, as far as it could, in his designs 
against the independence of the Ottoman empire. 

The allied powers had determined that the treaty of the 
6th July was not to remain a dead letter. A British squad- 
ron of four ships of the line, under Admiral Sir Edward 
Codrington, was already in the Levant, and also a French 
squadron of equal strength, under Admiral De Rigny. The 
Czar had despatched eight ships of the line, but four only, 
which was deemed his proportion, proceeded to the iEgean 
sea. 

The ambassadors of the allied powers, on the 16th August 
1827, presented a final note to the Turkish government. 
The Porte was immoveable. The ambassadors then pre- 
sented an additional note, informing the Porte, that in con- 
sequence of its refusal, their sovereigns would take the ne- 
cessary steps to carry the treaty into execution. 

Meanwhile Ibrahim was not slow in prosecuting the war 
of extermination in the Morea, which he had received orders 
from the Porte to undertake. His footsteps were marked 
by desolation. He issued orders to put every one to death 
in the villages where resistance was attempted; and in 
several this was actually done. The whole olive and fruit 
trees, the growth of centuries, and sole resource, in many 
places, of the inhabitants, were cut down or burnt. The 
women and children were all carried off to be sold as slaves, 
the men slain, the houses burnt, and continual clouds of 
smoke around the gulf of Coron, bore testimony to the de- 
vastation that was going forward. 

Informed of this devastation, and seeing Ibrahim's deter- 
mination to set the proposed armistice at defiance, the allied 
admirals held a consultation off Navarino, when they re- 
solved to unite the squadrons in Navarino itself, and to call on 
Ibrahim to desist from hostilities, under pain of being at- 
tacked in case of refusal. This resolution was agreed upon 
on the 18th October, and they proceeded immediately to 
carry it into execution. This led to the battle of Navarino. 
The forces of the allies consisted of ten ships of the line, ten 



• 

REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



263 



frigates and a brig, and a few smaller vessels, in all twenty- 
six sail, carrying 1,324 guns. The Ottoman forces con- 
sisted of seventy-nine vessels, of which four were of the line, 
nineteen frigates, and twenty-nine corvettes, besides lesser 
vessels, armed with 2,240 guns. Independent of the 
batteries on shore they had thus nine hundred guns more 
than the Christians. The advantages which the allies had 
in large ships was neutralised by the position of the enemy, 
who had drawn up their fleet in the bay of Navarino, close 
to the shore, in a vast semicircle, under the guns of the 
batteries, having their broadsides turned towards the centre 
of the bay, and so near each other, as to resemble rather a 
huge floating battery than a fleet of detached vessels. 

The combined fleet entered the bay on the afternoon of 
the 10th October. Sir Edward Codrington, in the Asia, 
eighty-four guns, led the van, and the six leading ships 
passed the batteries at the entrance of the bay, within pistol- 
shot without opposition. The Asia passed close to the ship 
of Moharem Bey, and with silent and awful grandeur clewed 
up her top-sails, rounded to, and let go her small bower- 
anchor, on the larboard of the Capitan Pasha's ship of equal 
size. Strict orders had been given not to fire ; and although 
all the ships on both sides were cleared for action, and every 
preparation made, not a shot was discharged, until the Dart- 
mouth sent a boat to one of the fire-ships, which was fired 
upon. This induced a defensive fire from the Dartmouth, 
which became extremely warm. At the same time, an officer 
bearing a flag of truce sent by Sir Edward Codrington to 
the Turkish admiral's ship, was slain ; and a cannon shot 
was fired at Admiral de Rigny's ship, which brought on a 
return from the Asia and Sirene ; and immediately the fire 
became general along the whole line. The battle lasted 
four hours, at the close of which the whole Ottoman ships 
were burnt, sunk, or destroyed, with the exception of twenty- 
eight of the smallest, which were cast ashore or spared by 
the conquerors. Fifty-one vessels, including the four line 
of battle ships, nineteen frigates, and twenty-nine corvettes, 
were destroyed, with seven thousand of their crews. 

This victory, one of the most complete on record, was 
calamitous beyond measure to the vanquished ; but it was 



264 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



by no means bloodless to the conquerors. The British and 
French sustained a loss of 118 killed and 314 wounded; 
but the heaviest share fell to the British. The Bussian loss 
was not known, a clear sign that it was not great. 

As soon as the battle had ceased, the correspondence with 
the admirals was renewed, and it was agreed that there 
should be no further hostilities. The visions of Grecian 
conquest were at an end with Ibrahim, and he wisely pre- 
pared to take his departure. Such of his ships as had es- 
caped destruction were repaired, and in December he took 
the first step towards the evacuation of the country by de- 
spatching his harem and five thousand sick and wounded 
soldiers. The firm attitude of the Divan, however, was not 
in the least shaken by the news of the misfortune ; and the 
allies having pressed for an answer to their note, received 
the following. " My positive, absolute, definitive, unchange- 
able, eternal answer is, that the Sublime Porte does not ac- 
cept any proposition regarding the Greeks, and will persist 
in his own will regarding them, even to the day of the last 
judgment 

Accommodation was now obviously hopeless ; and the 
ambassadors left Constantinople on December 8th, and soon 
after Count Capo dTstria, who had been elected President 
of Greece, took possession of his new dominions, and issued 
a proclamation declaring the Ottoman yoke for ever broken, 
arid the independence of Greece established. 

The contests in Greece became a matter of such second- 
ary importance after its independence was secured by the 
convention of July 1827, and the battle of Navarino, that 
a few words will suffice to give a summary of its progress. 

When the Bussians and Turks were dealing out weighty 
blows to each other, on the banks of the Danube, and 
Turkey threatened with a formidable and perhaps fatal in- 
vasion from the north, with her navy ruined, and Egypt cut 
off from sending its formidable succours, the Ottomans were 
in no condition to resume offensive operations in Greece. 
But as Ibrahim Pasha received positive orders from the 
Sultan to hold out till the last extremity, an army of fifteen 
thousand men, under the command of Marshal Maison, was 
sent from France and landed on the Morea on the 25th 



REVOLUTION IN GREECE. 



265 



August 1828. Ibrahim being in no condition to resist, a 
convention was concluded on the 7th September in virtue 
of which the whole Egyptian troops were embarked and 
conveyed to Alexandria in English and French vessels. 
Before the end of autumn, the whole of the Morea was 
cleared of the Ottomans. The appointment of Capo 
dTstria to the presidency had the effect of stilling the in- 
ternal discord, which had long paralyzed the strength of 
Greece. It was known that he was supported by the in- 
fluence of Eussia, and therefore resistance was hopeless. 
Many important strongholds were wrested from the Turks. 
Candia was recovered; Salona, with its garrison of 800 
men, capitulated; Lepanto and Anatolicon followed the ex- 
ample ; and at length the standard of the cross waved on 
the blood-stained ramparts of Missolonghi. The families 
which had withdrawn from the Morea to the shelter of the 
islands returned in such numbers that the voices of a happy 
population were again heard in the land. 

The limits of Greece were fixed by a protocol signed by 
the plenipotentiaries of Eussia, England and France, at 
London on March 22d, 1829, to which Eussia and Turkey 
gave their adhesion by article 10, of the treaty of Adrianople. 
By this treaty, Greece was to include the whole mainland 
of Turkey to the south of a line from Arta in the Adriatic, 
to Yolo in the Archipelago. It was to embrace, also, the 
whole islands in the iEgean sea, known under the name of 
the Cyclades, with Eubcea or Negropont, but neither Candia 
nor Cyprus. Greece was to remain tributary to Turkey 
and to pay an annual sum of £100,000 ; but it was to be 
governed entirely by its own inhabitants and laws ; and the 
infant nation was placed under the guarantee of England, 
France, and Eussia. The state was to be monarchical, but 
no sovereign was to be placed on the throne belonging to 
the reigning families of any of the powers which signed the 
treaty of July 6th, 1827; a complete amnesty was to be 
claimed by the Porte, in favour of all persons without ex- 
ception, who had been concerned in the Greek revolution ; 
and a year was to be accorded reciprocally to the Greeks to 
sell their property in Turkey, and the Turks to dispose of 
their property in Greece. The limits thus assigned to Greece, 



266 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



were subsequently contracted, and the line drawn on the 
Continent, not from Volo to Arta, but from Arta to Cape 
Armyro, in the gulf of Volo, in consideration of which the 
tribute was remitted and the sovereignty of the Porte entirely 
excluded. 

The establishment of the independence of Greece became 
a political necessity ; and many difficulties in the way of an 
amicable settlement of the question, presented themselves, 
in consequence of the jealousies of the powers which signed 
the treaty of the sixth July. The independence of Greece 
appears to have weakened the Ottoman barrier against 
Eussian aggression; but whether a more extended limit, or 
even the erection of a Byzantian empire, under the rule of 
a Christian government — if such could have been possible — 
would have presented a more formidable barrier against 
Eussia than Turkey, is a point about which there may be 
many opinions. The political results which may arise out 
of the contest now going forward in the east may serve to 
throw such light on this important question, as will open up 
the way to a general amelioration of the population of 
Turkey, and give additional security for the future safety 
of the Ottoman empire. The conduct of Capo d'Istria had 
given grounds of hope, that his|government would be agree- 
able to the people, but his appointment was scarcely known 
over the Morea than hi? real character began to appear. 
His first act was to abolish the popular form of government, 
to drive out the Constitutionalists from all places of trust, 
and to supply them with creatures of his own. In a short 
time, Greece was subjected to a most despotic government* 

It became necessary now to find a sovereign for Greece. 
Several conditions tended to limit the candidates for this 
honour. The first was, that the person elected must have 
the rank of a prince. This set Capo dTstria aside. After 
several parties had been mentioned, the conference agreed 
at last, upon Prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourg. This 
Prince subsequently rejected the appointment, and several 
other princes were named as candidates. The election of 
the three powers at last fell upon Prince Otho, son of the 
king of Bavaria, who since 1835 has occupied the throne 
of Greece. Greece is again (1854) occupied by the troops 



NEGOCIATIONS WITH RUSSIA, &C. 



267 



of France and England, for the purpose of suppressing an 
insurrection, fomented by the agency of Eussia, with the 
concurrence of the government of Greece, among the Chris- 
tian subjects of the Porte, in opposition to the very powers 
who were instrumental in placing his majesty King Otho 
upon the throne. 



NEGOCIATIONS WITH RUSSIA — DESTRUCTION OF THE 
JANIZARIES. 

When the Emperor Nicholas agreed to join the allied 
powers in erecting Greece into an independent state, he re- 
served, as has already been mentioned, his right to settle his 
own differences with the Porte, without the mediation of the 
other powers. It might not have been difficult to see the 
* meaning of this reservation. The interminable negociations 
between the Russian and Turkish governments, during the 
year 1826, regarding the clauses in the treaties of Kainardji 
and Bucharest, in favour of the Christian subjects of the 
Porte, reached an extraordinary and unlooked for issue. 
Contrary to what might have been expected, but, under the 
circumstances, what the Porte only could do, the Divan gave 
in an entire and unqualified adherence to the demands of the 
cabinet of St. Petersburg. 

The Ottoman empire was not in a condition to resist the 
march of a hundred thousand Muscovites upon her northern 
frontier, at the time that her whole disposable force was en- 
gaged in a tedious and doubtful w r ar with Greece ; while at 
the same time the government was about to carry into effect 
a change of policy, which had been long contemplated in 
Turkey, and which, for the present, would greatly weaken 
the disposable military force of the empire. 

The Janizaries had for ages been the terror of the govern- 
ment, and more than once they had prescribed their own 
terms to the Sultan, and even embrued their hands in his 
blood. The whole history of the Janizaries, which at times 
were the strength and at others the weakness of the empire, 
shows that their existence was incompatible with the inde- 
pendence of the Sultan and his government, and even with 



268 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



the safety of the state. The Sultan, therefore, resolved upon 
their destruction. The measures were now so far advanced, 
that though the Janizaries saw their danger, they did not 
feel themselves in sufficient strength openly to take steps 
against the preparations made to effect their overthrow. 
Fourteen thousand topjees or artillerymen had been dis- 
tributed in the barracks in and around Constantinople ; and 
as they were the avowed rivals of the Janizaries, the utmost 
pains had been taken to secure their fidelity. By the wise 
policy of Sultan Mahmoud the Muftis and the Ulemas, 
so often the disturbers of public reforms, had been enlisted 
in the cause. The plans of the government were so cau- 
tiously and wisely conceived that they scarcely excited the 
jealousy of the body they were intended to destroy. No 
resistance was at first experienced : the decree was read in 
the mosques without opposition ; Egyptian officers began to 
drill the selected men ; clothing was served out ; and as no 
new impost was levied, the people acquiesced without op- 
position in the new order of things. 

This state of acquiescence, unfortunately for the Janizar- 
ies themselves, did not long continue. The furnishing of 
one hundred and fifty men from the selected ortas or regi- 
ments went on without difficulty in the capital and neigh- 
bouring towns ; but when the recruits began to be drilled 
and marched in the European fashion the discontents at 
once broke out. On the evening of the 14th J une, the ill— 
humour of the Janizaries assumed the form of open mutiny; 
and the new regulations were stigmatised as a violation of 
the law of the Prophet. The men were worked up to such 
a pitch that they burst in a tumultuous manner from their 
barracks, assailed the palaces of the Grand Vizier, the Capi- 
tan Pasha, their own Aga, and the Pasha of Egypt's diplo- 
matic agent, which they plundered without reserve. This 
merely partial exhibition of the spirit and designs of the 
Janizaries is sufficient to show, in a favourable point of view, 
the judicious measures adopted by the Sultan previous to 
his venturing upon the experiment of destroying their as- 
cendency. The Muftis, Ulemas, and several of the chiefs of 
the Janizaries themselves, had given their consent to the 
change ; so that when the mutinous spirit of the body had 



DESTRUCTION OF THE JANIZARIES. 



269 



fairly broken out, they were destitute of leaders, of pru- 
dence, and of foresight, and instead of improving their 
victory, they thought of enjoying its fruits. Accordingly, 
after the pillage of the palaces, they dispersed among the 
wine vaults in the neighbourhood, and gave themselves up to 
the most revolting excesses. 

The energy and foresight of the Sultan and his ministers 
were conspicuous on this occasion. The Grand Seignior 
hastened to Constantinople and put himself at the head of 
the topjees or artillerymen, and faithful troops of every de- 
scription, which were directed from all quarters upon the 
capital. The Sultan found himself at the head of a large 
park of artillery which was brought from the arsenal of 
Tophana, the gunners of which were entirely at his devotion, 
together with the chief civil functionaries and principal 
military authorities of the empire. The regular force as- 
sembled soon amounted to ten thousand men, together with 
a prodigious crowd of Mussulmans of all ages and descrip- 
tions. The rebels were forthwith summoned to lay down 
their arms. They sternly refused, and demanded the heads 
of the Grand Yizier, of their own Aga, of Hassein Pasha, 
and of Redschid Effendi. These demands the Sultan re- 
fused, and Hassein Pasha was ordered to march against the 
rebels. They, on their side, prepared for the most vigorous 
resistance. The cheering of the ferocious bands was inces- 
sant ; and the overturning of their camp-kettles, the well- 
known signal of revolt, told that they were determined to 
sell their lives as dearly as possible. The combat was brief 
but terrible. The Janizaries were obliged to retire to their 
barracks, where they had prepared the means of resistance. 
But an awful catastrophe awaited them. The imperial com- 
manders, without attempting to force the gates, threw an in- 
cessant storm of shells into the building, which was soon set 
on fire ; and an overwhelming fire of grape upon the gates 
prevented all egress from the building. In these frightful 
circumstances the rebels offered to submit, but it was too 
late. Their petition was refused, and the shells continued 
to fall and the grape to be discharged, till the barracks were 
totally consumed. The insurgents, four thousand in num- 
ber, perished in the flames. The victory of the Sultan was 



270 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

complete ; but he was determined not to stop in the war of 
extermination. A thousand of those who were identified as 
belonging to the body, were put to death daily for several 
weeks. Before the slaughter ceased, forty thousand, in every 
part of the empire, had been put to death, and an equal 
number driven into exile. In short, the Janizaries were de- 
stroyed : the Sultan, with his whole court, assumed the 
Egyptian military dress ; the old costumes were forbidden ; 
and on the 3d September the pacification was deemed 
complete. 

This sanguinary revolution, destined to produce the most 
lasting effects upon the Ottoman empire, could not at first 
be expected to realise the sanguine anticipations of Sultan 
Mahmoud. The Janizaries were too deeply interwoven with 
its ancient and venerated institutions to be at once over- 
thrown with impunity. A dreadful fire, the work of in- 
cendiaries, broke out in Constantinople in August, which, in 
a few hours, consumed six thousand houses, and involved 
altogether a loss of £5,800,000. Instead of 250,000 recruits, 
upon which the Sultan had calculated, not fifteen thousand 
had rallied round the standard of the Prophet. The most 
severe denunciations were pronounced and carried into 
/execution against those who used expressions tending to 
disturb the public peace. The Sultan was equally vigorous 
in the prosecution of civil reforms, and many important 
regulations were made in the internal economy of the 
state. The Divan, however, gave strong proof that they 
did not intend to abate the distinctions between races 
and religions. The reforms which the Sultan had accom- 
plished, were nearly all hostile to the inveterate usage 
of the empire, and they were perhaps as extensive as could 
be safely accomplished at once; for no regulations made 
for the direction of a people can ever be successful, if too 
suddenly arid strongly urged against the feelings and habits 
of a nation. 

The first effect of the destruction of the Janizaries, and 
the consequent abolition of the available military force of 
the empire, appeared in the attitude which Kussia assumed 
towards Turkey at the negociations which began at Acker- 
man, a town in Bessarabia, on the 1st August 1826. On 



NEGOCIATIOXS WITH RUSSIA, &C. 



271 



the 8 th of October, the last day allowed, the plenipoten- 
tiaries of the two powers signed the Convention of Acker- 
man, which has since occupied a prominent place in the 
diplomacy of the East. This convention, which in a great 
measure was extorted from Turkey, is a solemn recognition of 
the treaties of Kainardji and Bucharest, and it does not, at 
first sight, appear to be very detrimental to the independence 
of that empire. But upon more minute examination, its ten- 
dency appears to be to sap the foundations of the Ottoman 
state. It confers a right on the part of Kussia of interfer- 
ence in behalf of the members of the Greek church, in cer- 
tain parts of the Turkish empire, or in short, a right of 
protectorate on the part of Bussia, totally inconsistent with 
the independence of Turkey. Such a right of protection 
as that assumed by Bussia over the Christian subjects of a 
great part of the Ottoman empire, the impunity which it 
stipulated for the rebels of Moldavia and Wallachia, and 
ifre immunities provided for Servia, are nothing short of a 
Transference of the real power from Constantinople to St. 
Petersburg, and exhibit another among the many instances 
of the crafty diplomacy of Bussia, and the stealthy means 
which that nation employs to accomplish its ambitious 
designs. 

Meanwhile, the Sultan continued his reforms ; but he 
found that the task was difficult. By the end of the year, 
he had not more than 20,000 men instructed in the new 
exercises, and he therefore began to feel the straits to which 
his empire was reduced. 

During this interval, the Russians had undertaken a new 
war against Persia, in which they were eminently success- 
ful. The Persians agreed to every thing the conquerors 
demanded, and Bussia was put in possession of the fortress 
of Erivan and the province in which it is situated. 

Hardly was this war finished, when Bussia set about pre- 
paring for another. A ukase ordered a levy of two males 
in every five hundred over the whole extent of the empire ; 
and for the first time, the Jews were subjected to the mili- 
tary conscription. The departure of the Emperor s aide-de- 
camp, Count Capo dTstria, with great pomp, to take pos- 
session of the presidency of Greece, indicated in what 



272 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



direction the views of the cabinet of St. Petersburg were 
directed. The conduct of the Count, in attempting to 
establish a purely despotic government in Greece, betrays 
the school in which he had been taught, and may not un- 
justly be considered to indicate ulterior designs on the part 
of Russia on the newly erected state. 

Persia, foreseeing a rupture between Russia and Turkey, 
resolved upon recommencing hostilities, and accordingly the 
preliminaries agreed to were not ratified. But the step was 
premature. Russia immediately resumed hostilities ; and 
the court of Teheran, finding that Russia was still too strong 
for their forces, determined to yield to necessity. The 
treaty was signed at Tourkmantchai, on terms much more 
rigorous than the preliminaries. It stipulated the payment 
of £3,000,000 towards the expenses of the war, and the 
cession of Erivan and Nakhitchevan, with a military fron- 
tier which commands the entire north of Persia. 

This outbreak in Asia hardly interrupted the approaching 
hostilities in Europe. The two powers mutually accused 
each other of having given occasion for the war. The 
Porte accused the Russians of having secretly fomented the 
insurrection in Greece, and of openly attacking and de- 
stroying their fleet at Navarino ; with having violated the 
treaties of Bucharest and Ackerman, and establishing con- 
nections with the malcontents in every part of the empire. 
The Turkish government has publicly asserted that Russia 
agreed "to renounce all interference in the affairs of Greece," 
after she had signed the treaty of London, which treaty 
bound her to interfere even by force of arms if necessary ! 
On the other hand, the Russian government replied by ac- 
cusing the Porte of having excited the mountaineers of 
Caucasus to revolt, and inviting them to embrace Islamism ; 
with having violated or delayed the execution of all the 
treaties in favour of the Christians, and arbitrarily closing 
the Bosporus on various occasions, and deeply injured 
thereby the southern provinces of the empire. 

It is evident that both parties had grounds of complaint ; 
but it is as evident that Russia was the aggressive party, 
and that the measures of the Porte can scarcely be consid- 
ered even retaliatory. But reason and justice were alike 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



273 



out of the question : Russia, at all hazards, had resolved 
on war. 

WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 

During the spring of 1828 every preparation had been 
made by Eussia to augment the military force of the empire, 
and to communicate a warlike spirit to the inhabitants. In 
a country of such vast extent, where the troops have to 
march a thousand and fifteen hundred miles before they 
reach the theatre of war, a considerable time must elapse 
before any considerable concentration can take place. It 
was therefore not till the month of May that hostilities ac- 
tually commenced. General Diebiteh was appointed adju- 
tant-general of the army on the Danube, which, by the 
beginning of April, mustered 108,000 men. This force was 
augmented in the end of August to 158,800. 
> The Divan, on their part, made surprising efforts to 
maintain the independence of the empire. In the begin- 
ning of May, they had got together in Europe fifty thou- 
sand regular infantry, several squadrons of regular cavalry, 
fifteen thousand spahis or feudal horsemen, and twenty 
thousand gunners, who had already been brought to a sur- 
prising degree of efficiency and skill. The warlike spirit 
of the Mussulmans was fairly roused ; war was proclaimed 
against Russia with the utmost solemnity in the mosques, 
and all Mussulmans called to take up arms in defence of 
their holy religion and national independence. The Sand- 
jak-sheriff, said to be composed of part of the dress actually 
worn by the Prophet, was solemnly brought forth, and the 
horse-tails, the well-known symbol of war to the death, 
were displayed on the gates of the Seraglio. < 

On the 7th May, the Russian army crossed the Pruth. 
The Turks retired as the Russians advanced. In a few 
weeks the level country was overrun ; Jassay and Buchar- 
est occupied ; G-alatz with its valuable harbour taken ; their 
advanced guard observed Brahilow and Widdin, and the 
entire left of the Danube was occupied by the Muscovite 
troops. 

s 



274 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



The Turks had resolved to make their first stand on the 
Danube, the fortresses of which had been armed, provisioned 
and garrisoned. A reserve was formed at Adrianople : 
Schumla had been strengthened, and garrisoned with thirty 
thousand men, and the irregular hordes of Albanians, Bos- 
niaks, Koumelians and Bulgarians had been called out. In 
Asia Minor the preparations were equally active and for- 
midable, and it was thought that the Pasha of Erzerum 
could collect a hundred thousand men round his banners. 

The plan of the campaign was entirely based upon the 
command of the sea, a matter of the utmost importance, and 
without which the Bussian army could not have achieved 
that success, so disastrous to Turkey, with which this war 
was distinguished. Such was the effect of the destruction 
of the Turkish fleet at Navarino. 

The Emperor Nicholas joined the army on the 8th June, 
and immediately the passage of the Danube was commenced. 
A corps forced the passage, which was opposed by eight 
thousand Turks, with a powerful artillery resting on the 
fortress of Isaktchi. The Turks abandoned their guns, and 
fled in disorder, and the passage continued without further 
interruption. Count Nesselrode published from Isaktchi 
an address to the inhabitants of the principalities, declaring 
that "the wishes of his imperial master were limited to 
securing to them their legal rights and privileges under the 
protection of Bussia." Kustendji, a fortress situated at the 
eastern extremity of Trajan's wall, capitulated on condition 
of the men being conducted to Pravadi. Thus the Bussians 
acquired a fortified harbour on the Euxine, the importance 
of which appeared in the arrival next day of twenty-six 
ships laden with provisions and stores from Odessa. 
> Meanwhile the siege of Brahilow continued to be prose- 
cuted with vigour.- This fortress, the strongest and most 
important on the lower Danube, had none of the advantages 
of modern science in the construction of its defences ; but 
in its rude wooden and mud houses dwelt thirty thousand 
inhabitants, of whom ten thousand were capable of bearing 
arms. The garrison was of nearly equal strength ; and they 
proved to the Muscovites that they had not degenerated 
from the valour of their ancestors. 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



275 



Operations against this stronghold began on the 17th 
May ; the trenches were armed with 24-pounders ; and on 
the 25th a heavy fire commenced on the place. The Mus- 
sulmans gave little disturbance to the besiegers ; their whole 
care was in preparing a warm reception for the enemy when 
he should venture to mount the breach. "7 Mines having 
/ been run under the walls, they were fired on the loth June, 
and a breach of thirty paces wide was effected. Before 
the smoke had cleared away, and while the fragments were 
still falling, a Kussian column rushed forward to the assault, 
which was repulsed with great slaughter. The troops were 
repeatedly led back to the attack : all their efforts were in 
vain ; and the Eussians withdrew on all sides, having, by 
their own admission, three thousand killed and wounded 
around the breach. <L 

On the following day a fresh mine was sprung, and the 
governor, who did not feel himself in sufficient strength to 
resist a second attack, capitulated with all the honours of war. 
Two hundred and seventy guns, seventeen thousand pounds 
of powder, immense stores of wood, and provisions which en- 
tirely subsisted the army for a month, fell into the hands of 
the victors. Many smaller fortresses surrendered at the 
first summons, and the whole level country between the 
Danube and the sea, as far as the wall of Trajan, was occu- 
pied by the enemy. 

The advantages which the Eussians possessed in their 
naval superiority in the Black Sea, was very apparent 
throughout the whole of this war ; and indeed, mainly con- 
tributed to their success. An expedition, consisting of 
eight ships of the line and six frigates, having on board 
seven thousand land troops, sailed on the 15th May from 
Sebastopol, and made for Anapa, a fortress on the opposite 
shore of Asia Minor, at the foot of the Caucasus. On the 
11th June the place capitulated. The besiegers found 
eighty-five guns on the ramparts, abundant stores of am- 
munition and provisions in the magazines, and became 
masters of a fortified harbour of great value on the north- 
eastern coast of Asia Minor. Had Eussia, at this time, not 
had the command of the Black Sea, it would have been diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, to have marched her troops by land, 



276 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



to their destinations in Asia Minor. They must have made 
the immense round by the pass of Vladi-Kavkas, or the 
Gates of Derbend on the Caspian Sea, a march of immense 
length, difficulty, and danger. 

Owing to the superiority of the Turkish cavalry, the 
Eussians received a severe check in the neighbourhood of 
Bazardjik, in which they lost twelve hundred men, after 
which, Nicholas paused a week, to give time to his rein- 
\ forcements to come up. On the 15th July he resumed his 
march, with fifty thousand men and a hundred and eight 
guns. A severe cavalry action shortly ensued, in which 
the Russians lost six hundred men ; and it was only by the 
advance of a body of infantry and artillery, that the ad- 
vanced guard was rescued from total destruction. It was 
the Spahis of Bulgaria, each superbly armed, and mounted 
on his own horse, that constituted this formidable feudal 
militia. Nothing could exceed the vehemence of their 
charge ; and their courage was now restrained by discipline, 
and directed by prudence. 

On the 20th July, a general movement took place to- 
wards Schumla; but the Turks being deficient in infantry 
and artillery, they were in no condition to oppose the 
enemy. After several brilliant charges of cavalry, they 
retired wdthin their entrenched camp at Schumla, w T here 
forty thousand men were now assembled* 

The Emperor did not run the hazard of attacking 
Schumla, the key to the Balkan, and the crossing point of 
all the roads in that quarter, which traverse the mountain 
barrier. It was therefore resolved to observe Schumla only 
with a corps of thirty thousand men, and to direct the re- 
mainder of the army against Varna. The Emperor himself 
set out on the 2d August for Varna, and embarked for 
Odessa. Here he ordered a general levy of four men in 
five hundred for the service of the army ; and he contracted 
a loan with the house of Hopes at Amsterdam for £1,800,000. 
These measures sufficiently indicated the charges of the war, 
and the vast loss of life with which it had already been at- 
tended. 

The prospect of the Eussians at this stage of the war w r as 
sufficiently gloomy. The plague had made great ravages 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



277 



in the array. The pestilential fevers of autumn had ap- 
peared in the principalities: the hospitals were filled with 
sick; and without having fought a pitched battle, the in- 
vading army was reduced by one half. Notwithstanding 
their command of the sea, provisions had become scarce; 
and the inhabitants, to conceal what they had, fled into the 
woods and mountains to avoid their oppressors. 

Nevertheless, the position of the Turks was critical; 
their frontier fortresses had mostly fallen into the hands of 
the enemy: they were blockaded in their stronghold, the 
last and the greatest bulwark of the empire. Constantinople 
itself was blockaded by sea, and the supplies from the 
Euxine on which it had hitherto depended entirely cut off. 
Nevertheless the firmness and courage of the Sultan and 
his council was not abated; and every measure was taken 
to recruit the army, and to rouse the military enthusiasm 
of the people. 

Meanwhile, various operations took place before Schumla, 
in which the Ottomans for the most part were victorious. 
They gained substantial fruits by their successful enter- 
prises in the introduction of a considerable body of troops, 
and a large convoy of ammunition and provisions into their • 
entrenched camp. 

While affairs were wearing a sombre aspect around 
Schumla, the siege of Varna had come to be seriously pro- 
secuted by sea and land. On the 5th September, the Em- 
peror arrived in person, and the besieging force was rein- 
forced by 21,000 men, with ninety-six guns. The siege 
and defence was conducted with equal bravery on both 
sides, until the governor Jussuf Pasha, the second in com- 
mand, imagining his situation hopeless, negociations were 
commenced on the 8th October. On the 10th the place 
was surrendered, and on the 11th the garrison, 6,800 strong, 
were made prisoners of war. One hundred and sixty pieces 
of cannon were found on the rftmparts. 

Whatever may have been the ultimate fate of Varna, it is 
pretty evident that Jussuf Pasha betrayed his sovereign and 
his country. No regular assault had been delivered, and 
the garrison still possessed the means of defence. But 
whatever doubt might be entertained on the point, it was 



278 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



soon removed by the conduct of Jussuf Pasha. He re- 
paired in person, first on board the Ville de Paris in the 
roads, and then to the Emperor s tent on shore, to conduct 
the capitulation, and afterwards sailed away in a Russian 
frigate to Odessa. He soon after received an ample grant 
of lands in the Crimea from the Emperor, in compensation, 
it was alleged, for his extensive estates in Macedonia, con- 
fiscated by orders of the Sultan! The Russian generals 
were in the hope of being able to reduce Silistria before 
winter, but it became evident that it could not be under- 
taken with any prospect of success before the following 
spring. The blockade therefore was raised, and orders 
sent to Wittgenstein to retreat with all his forces behind 
the Danube. The Emperor himself set sail for Odessa. 
^ The retreat of the Russian army was most disastrous. 
Eye-witnesses of both compare it to the Moscow retreat. 
Caissons and baggage were abandoned at every step ; the 
stragglers nearly all fell into the enemy's hands, by whom 
they were instantly massacred. The wearied columns at 
last reached the Danube, which they immediately crossed, 
and spread themselves in winter-quarters over Wallachia. 
Thus ended in Europe the campaign of 1828. With the 
exception of Moldavia and Wallachia, which were abandoned 
without resistance, and the reduction of Brahilow and Yarna, 
the Russians had made no sensible progress. They had by 
their own admission lost nearly half the troops engaged ; 
for out of 158,000 which had crossed the Pruth, only 80,000 
remained in November in the fortresses they had subdued, 
and in winter-quarters. 

The Ottomans too, had sustained very great losses. Two 
of their frontier fortresses had been wrested from them; 
and above half of the garrison of Schumla had left their 
colours, and returned home in the beginning of winter. 

The campaign in Asia during the same year, although 
apparently of less importance, was attended with more de- 
cisive results. General Paskewitch, who directed it, had 
won during his successful campaigns against Persia, a solid 
base of operations on the Araxis by the acquisition of Eri- 
van and other fortresses, and from them, he commenced a 
most brilliant and successful campaign. The force under 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



279 



his command was small, but the troops were brave, hardy, 
and well disciplined. It consisted, in all, of 20,854 infantry, 
5,514 cavalry, and 114 guns. Of these, however, only 
8,561 infantry, 3,346 cavalry, and 70 guns, were under the 
immediate direction of the commander-in-chief, and achieved 
all the successes of the war. 

If the Caucasian mountains be alone considered as form- 
ing the natural defences of the Asiatic provinces of Turkey, 
the object which Eussia had in view, in occupying the 
rugged and gloomy passes of those inhospitable regions, and 
of establishing herself upon the Araxis, will at once be per- 
ceived. The Caucasus forms a vast barrier between the 
Black Sea and the Caspian, inaccessible to mortal foot, al- 
ternately glittering in a cloudless sun, or enveloped in im- 
penetrable mists. Generally speaking, there are two vast 
ranges of mountains running opposite to each other, and 
both terminating in a peak of great magnitude and 
elevation. The Elbruz is the culminating point of the 
northern of the two ranges, and Mount Ararat of the 
southern. Each is about 15,300 feet in height, or as nearly 
as possible the elevation of Mount Blanc. The medium 
elevation of the two chains is about 10,000 feet, and their 
summits are so rugged and sharp that, except in a few places 
where they are intersected by deep and narrow ravines, 
forming the well known passes through them, they are 
wholly impassable even by foot-soldiers. 

Seen from the north, the Caucasus presents a vast barrier 
rising insensibly from 1,200 to 10,000 feet in height. The 
summits of the first range, which do not exceed 4,000 feet, 
are covered with grass ; not a tree nor a shrub breaks the even 
surface ; but their sides are furrowed by frightful ravines, 
through which torrents descend with irresistible violence. 
The character of the interior range is quite different. Dark 
forests clothe their shaggy sides ; their summits start up into 
a thousand fantastic and inaccessible peaks which repose in 
icy stillness on the azure firmament. 

The principal pass is the great military road of Yladi- 
Caucse, which leads into Georgia. It is defended by forti- 
fied block-houses at all the stations, and which at its highest 
point of elevation, at the mountain of the Holy Cross, is 



280 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



7,974 feet above the level of the sea. The Pass, at that 
summit, is called " The Iron Gate." The road which forms 
the Russian line of communication to the eastern parts of 
Georgia, is that which goes by the shore of the Caspian 
through the famous gates of Derbend. This pass is formed 
by the meeting of a perpendicular precipice, 1,400 feet in 
elevation, the last face of the Caucasus, and the shore of the 
Caspian Sea. These fortifications were erected in ancient 
times by the kings of Persia, to avert the incursions of the 
Tartars. But how formidable soever they may appear, the 
incursions of Ginghis Khan and Timour were effected by 
these passes, through which, repeatedly, three and four thou- 
sand ruthless barbarians have passed on horseback, carrying 
their forage at their saddle-bows, bent on devastation and 
plunder. 

The Russian army in the Caucasus is generally thirty 
thousand strong. The great military roads through the 
range are kept open by large bodies of men ; strong forts 
are placed at every station, and the very lazarettos are loop- 
holed and guarded to prevent them from falling into the 
hands of the mountaineers. 

Asia Minor, which is sheltered from the blasts of the 
north by the rampart of the Caucasus, has in every 
period of history borne an important part alike in Asiatic 
and European annals. It is intersected by a variety 
of mountain ranges, and its valleys and plains abound 
with the choicest gifts of nature. The climate of Georgia, 
which stretches to the south, is mild and temperate, and 
where the valleys approach the plain of Mesopotamia, the 
productions of the temperate zone are blended with those of 
the tropical regions. It is on these sunny slopes that the 
Garden of Eden is placed by Scripture, and from thence 
that the human race set out on its pilgrimage through the 
globe. On the banks of the Kar and the Kuban, the former 
of which descends through the chains of Elbruz and Ararat, 
to the Caspian, and the latter from the west of the Elbruz 
to the Black Sea, realises all that Milton has conceived of 
the charms of Paradise. Here the most choice and delicate 
fruits are found in profusion; green pastures nourish innu- 
merable flocks, and the finest crops of wheat, maize and 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



281 



barley, almost without labour, reward the husbandman. 
The perfection of the animals which are found in that- 
favoured region, and the exquisite beauty of the women, 
celebrated over all the world, bespeak the beneficence of 
nature. Yet in these plains, the slave bends under the rod 
of the tyrant, and these valleys of surpassing loveliness and 
beauty, are alternately swept by the incursions of ruthless 
mountaineers, or deluged with the blood of barbarian war- 
riors. 

} Erzeroum, the capital of Asia Minor, is a city of a hundred 
thousand inhabitants — the seat of a Pasha of the highest 
grade ; and in the government and defence of the empire, is 
second only to Constantinople.<The character of the country 
in Asia Minor, between the Caucasus and Erzeroum, adds im- 
mensely to its capabilities of defence against a northern invader. 
It is intersected in all directions by rugged and precipitous 
ranges of hills, so twisted and interwoven with each other, 
that they are almost impervious to regular European troops, 
burdened with artillery and chariots, while the passage is 
easy to Turkish hordes who are seldom troubled with any 
such encumbrances. Fortresses guard the most important 
passes, or crown the overhanging cliffs. The road by the 
coast stops at Trebizond. Only one road fit for carriages 
traverses the centre of the country by Kars to Erzeroum, 
and it is defended by several formidable forts. The third 
is the line of Ararat. The centre line, is the great road, 
used for thousands of years from Tifiis to Constantinople. 
After mature consideration, Paske witch chose the centre 
road, chiefly because it presented fewer difficulties of a 

y physical nature. >The object which Paskewitch desired, was 
to make himself master of Erzeroum, the capital city, and 
centre of the Turkish power in Asia.< With this view, his 
first movement was directed upon Kars, a fortress of strength, 
which lay directly upon the road to the capital. The Turks, 
on their side, had made vigorous preparations. The Pasha 
of Erzeroum, with sixty thousand men, was to advance on 
Kars, to raise the siege, while the Pasha of Akhilska, a 
strong fortress on the Eussian right, was to threaten their 
flank. But before the Ottoman militia could be collected, 
the Eussian troops were before Kars. This fortress, of 



282 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



great natural as well as artificial strength, was built by 
Amurath III. in 1578, and is celebrated over all Asia, as 
having repulsed Nadir Shah, at the head of ninety thou- 
sand Persians, after he had defeated a hundred thousand 
Turks in its vicinity. The garrison was six thousand strong, 
and four thousand armed citizens. The Turks soon found 
that they had different enemies to deal with than the des- 
ultory bands of Persians. Trenches were opened on the 
22d June, and on the 15th July, the governor surrendered. 
The garrison were made prisoners; and a hundred and 
twenty-nine pieces of cannon, twenty- two mortars, thirty- 
three standards, and great stores of ammunition fell into 
the hands of the victors. 

In order to secure a solid base for future operations, it 
became necessary to reduce the strong fortress of Akhilska, 
and thither the Muscovite army directed its steps. The 
garrison was more than double the force which the Russian 
general could bring against it. The fortress was very strong, 
and it was defended by the most warlike and indomitable 
inhabitants in these regions, all of whom had sworn to bury 
themselves in the ruins rather than surrender it to the 
ancient enemies of their country and their faith. The 
defence of the garrison and the inhabitants was worthy of 
their renown; but they were compelled to give way before 
the superior discipline and science of the west. 

The subsequent movements of the Russian army among 
the rugged, desolate and pathless mountains of Asia Minor 
were crowned with success. The achievements of Paske- 
witch were rapid, brilliant and decisive, obviously the result 
of superior generalship and tactics. > The approach of the 
Russians spread the utmost consternation in the capital. 
On the 19th July, 1829, the advanced guard arrived before 
Erzeroum, and on the following day he himself arrived with 
the guns and the great bulk of the forces. An immediate 
attack was ordered on Top-Dagh, a rocky eminence com- 
manding the town, which was decisive of the fate of the 
capital. A capitulation was agreed upon, and on the 
anniversary of the battle of Pultova the troops entered 
the city, and the Russian standards waved on the ramparts 
of the capital of the Turkish empire in Asia. * 



WAR AVITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



283 



The administrative measures of Paskewitch were as 
judicious as his military operations were successful. He 
had succeeded in establishing his power over provinces 
which his arms had never reached, and he was proceeding 
to lead back part of his army to winter quarters in Georgia, 
when despatches were received by both parties announcing 
the conclusion of a convention between the Grand Yizier 
and General Diebitch, with the view to the conclusion of a 
peace at Adrianople. 

When the achievements of the Eussian arms had well 
nigh prostrated the power of Turkey in Asia, events much 
more momentous in their character took place in European 
Turkey. The breathing-time which had been afforded by 
the closing of the campaign of 1828, had been made good 
use of by both parties. The Mussulmans who had returned 
to their homes at the beginning of winter, crowded to their 
standards when spring returned ; and in the beginning of 
March the Grand Yizier had forty thousand men in the in- 
trenched camp around Schumla. The most pressing orders 
were sent to the Pashas of Widdin, Janina, Adrianople, and 
Scutari, to hasten to the theatre of war with all their forces. 
But they did not obey the summons. Had they duly 
marched with all their contingents, there would have been 
two hundred thousand Ottomans to defend the line of the 
Balkan. The results of the war have made it sufficiently 
evident, that had these chiefs obeyed their sovereign, the 
Russian army would in vain have attempted to cross the 
mountain barrier. Some held back from disaffection. The 
Pasha of Widdin delayed from treachery ; and the Pasha of 
Scutari, who should have appeared with thirty thousand men, 
did not come up till the campaign was over. It was evi- 
dent that the feud with the Janizaries had paralysed great 
part of the strength of the empire ; and the result was that 
the Turks had not above a hundred thousand men altogether 
in arms in Europe, and above the half of this force was ab- 
sorbed in the fortresses on the Danube. 

The preparations of Russia had been on a most gigantic 
scale. One hundred and twenty thousand men were drawn 
from the army of the south, and twenty thousand Cossacks 
from Bessarabia. Making a liberal deduction from these 



284 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



numbers for non-effective, and loss from sickness and fatigue, 
it may be inferred that they began the campaign in Bulgaria 
and on the line of the Danube with nearly two hundred 
thousand men. This army had with it five hundred and 
forty guns ; and provisions for the immense host for two 
months were stored on the Danube. 

Various considerable operations had taken place on the 
Danube during the winter. Several inferior fortresses and 
a flotilla of thirty gun-boats had been captured by the 
Russians ; but a more important acquisition was the castle 
of Sizepolis on the Black Sea at the eastern end, and within 
the line of the Balkan. 

If the superiority of the Russians at sea, both in the 
Euxine and the Mediterranean, gave them great advantages, 
it operated with decisive effect against the Turks. It 
threatened to starve Constantinople itself into an early sub- 
mission, and deprived the Turks of all possibility of trans- 
porting their troops or magazines by water. So great are 
the advantages which this superiority at sea confers, that it 
is universally admitted, that without the command of the 
sea on their left or the co-operation of Austria on their 
right, the Russian army could never have reached the plains 
of Roumelia. 

At the commencement of the campaign of 1829 Wittgen- 
stein was removed, and Count Diebitch, the chief of his staff, 
appointed to the command. The plan of operations, based 
upon the possession of Varna and the Black Sea, was to be- 
siege Silistria, Roustchouck, and Schumla, and having made 
themselves masters of these places, to push across the Balkan 
by the eastern valleys between Schumla and the sea. The 
campaign commenced about the beginning of May. The 
Russians advanced in two huge columns to the Danube, 
which they began to pass at Hirchova and Kalavatsch, im- 
mediately below Silistria. The passage was completed on 
the 10th, and the left column approached that fortress, which 
was the first object of the campaign. The communications 
of the invading army with the besieging force before Silistria 
and with Varna, were kept up by the forces under General 
Roth, and eight thousand men stationed at Pravadi. 

Redschid Pasha, who had been recently called from 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



285 



Greece to the important station of Grand Vizier, had col- 
lected forty thousand men in Schumla, and he resolved to 
commence the campaign by an attack on Pravadi. Some 
brilliant exploits ensued, in which the Eussians claim the 
advantage, and their opponents withdrew to the intrenched 
camp in front of Schumla. 

Meanwhile Silistria had been invested. This town, which 
is situated on the right bank of the Danube near the angle 
which it forms by suddenly taking a northerly direction, 
contained in 1829 twenty -nine thousand inhabitants, of 
whom nearly six thousand were enrolled among the armed 
defenders of the place. The town is very imperfectly forti- 
fied, being surrounded by a wall which has ten fronts, each 
of which has two small bastions which give a flanking fire 
to the ditch in front of the walls. There is no covered way 
or outworks of any consequence, and the glacis is very im- 
perfect. The besieging force was thirty -five thousand 
strong, and Diebitch was at the head of a covering army of 
forty thousand, a little in advance, towards Schumla. The 
garrison, exclusive of the armed inhabitants, was nearly ten 
thousand, commanded by Achmet Pasha, a man of deter- 
mined resolution and tried ability. The siege, although 
pressed with vigour, was considerably interrupted by the 
inundations of the Danube, so that the progress during the 
first week was exceedingly slow. This circumstance induced 
the Grand Yizier to conceive a plan which, if successful, 
might be attended with decisive effect on the issue of the 
campaign. He resolved to issue from the camp at Schumla, 
attack Pravadi, and thereby compel the enemy to abandon ♦ 
the siege. On the 28th May, at the head of thirty-six thou- 
sand men, he directed his steps across the hills, and on the 
1st June he reached the valley in which Pravadi stands. 
Intelligence of this movement was instantly despatched to 
Diebitch, when he at once conceived and executed a bold 
and decisive measure. On the 5th June he set out from 
the shores of the Danube at the head of twenty thousand 
men, leaving General Krasowsky to continue the siege of 
Silistria, and moved by forced marches, not on the Grand 
Vizier's force in front of Eski-Arnaultar, but on his line of 
communication with Schumla. By this means he would 



286 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



compel the Turks either to abandon Schumla or to fight 
their way back to it through the Russian army. Either con- 
tingency, it was conceived, would be equally disastrous to 
the Turks. Pravadi stands in a deep valley shut in by 
mountain ridges, the offshoots of the Balkan, about two thou- 
sand feet in height. The valleys formed by these ridges 
are so arranged that an army passing from Schumla 
to Pravadi, must pass a point at Madara. Thither, accord- 
ingly, Diebitch directed his steps : and on the 9th June 
Count Phalen with the advanced guard, stationed himself 
there. The enemy was entirely concealed from the Ottomans 
by a curtain of light troops under General Roth drawn be- 
tween them and the Russian line of advance ; and by forced 
marches, that general effected his junction with Diebitch, 
thereby raising the forces between the Turks and Schumla 
to thirty-one thousand men, and one hundred and forty-six 
guns. 

Owing to the unscientific arrangements of their armies 
and their method of conducting a campaign, the Turkish 
generals up to this period had never been able, especially 
when engaged with a disciplined army, to ascertain exactly 
the movements of the enemy, and therefore they never could 
perceive with any clearness, his probable intentions. The 
same primitive rudeness appears in the machinery of the 
internal government of Turkey. The governments of the 
other states of Europe, by the efficiency of their internal 
police, and their admirably appointed diplomatic staffs, are 
enabled to discover everything that may be going on of a 
* disturbing influence, not only within their own dominions, 
but every movement or preparation of a hostile or dangerous 
character, that may be brewing, not in Europe only, but in 
every part of the world where their interests may be con- 
cerned. But the Turks, in military as well as in civil mat- 
ters, often remain in ignorance of approaching danger till 
the cloud bursts over their heads. 

The position of Redschid Pasha before Pravadi, with the 
Russian army on his rear, is an illustration of the deficiency 
of the Turks in modern military science. But neither was 
the Russian army in a safe position. It was scattered from 
Boulanik by Madara to near Pravadi, a distance of twenty- 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



287 



five miles ; and had Diebitch been in presence of Napoleon or 
Wellington, or even of Paske witch, he would probably have 
paid dear for his temerity. The Turkish commander was 
first made aware on the 10th by some prisoners taken in a 
combat of cavalry that his communications with Schumla 
were entirely cut off. Three lines of retreat to that fortress 
alone existed, two of which w 7 ere mere mountain paths, 
difficult for the Turkish artillery, which was all drawn by 
bullocks. As the Grand Vizier was in the belief that he 
had only the corps of Both and Eudiger to oppose him in 
his retreat, he preferred the central road by Madara, and he 
anticipated little difficulty in re-entering Schumla. In the 
first encounter the Kussians were completely routed, with the 
loss of four hundred killed and five pieces of cannon. Fol- 
lowing up their victory, the Turks threw themselves on the 
squares of infantry, two of which were broken, and one of 
them, sixteen hundred in number, was entirely cut up. Six 
guns were also taken. Three of the squares made their way 
back to the valley of Kouleftscha. Here the Turks met a 
severe check, and they regained the position they had left 
in the morning with heavy loss. Had the Grand Vizier's 
reserve, which remained inactive, been brought up, he would 
not only have cleared the road to Schumla, but achieved a 
glorious victory. 

Diebitch perceiving the position of the Turks, drew r to- 
gether every disposable man and gun, and resolved to bring 
on a general action. The Kussian army, superior in equip- 
ments as well as in discipline, gained a decisive victory, and 
forty pieces of artillery out of fifty-six fell into the hands of 
the enemy ; five thousand were slain in the battle and pur- 
suit, and fifteen hundred were made prisoners, and more 
than half the fugitives threw away their arms, and were 
never seen again. The Eussians sustained a loss of three 
thousand five hundred killed and wounded. Owing to the 
inactivity or oversight of Diebitch, the Grand Vizier reached 
Schumla on the morning of the 13th with six thousand horse ; 
and part of his infantry succeeded in scrambling through the 
rocks and woods, and on that and the succeeding day, reached 
the camp. The magnitude of his loss was then apparent. 
The Grand Vizier could only muster twelve thousand foot 



288 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



soldiers, and six thousand horse, with twelve guns, the re- 
mains of forty thousand men and fifty-six guns, which had 
issued from the place, in fine order, a few days before. 

The expedition of Diebitch only retarded the siege of 
Silistria. The Turks made a most gallant defence, not- 
withstanding the discouragement produced by the defeat at 
Kouleftscha. On the 19th they made a general sortie, 
which was attended with such success that the Eussians 
were everywhere driven back to their batteries, and the 
ground lost was not regained till noon on the following day. 
On the succeeding day flames burst forth in every part of 
the town, which together with the arrival of Diebitch at the 
besiegers' lines, created such consternation, that the inhabi- 
tants besieged the governor with petitions for a capitulation. 
On the 30th June a great mine under the rampart having 
been exploded, and the two Pashas who commanded in the 
town, seeing further resistance hopeless, agreed to surrender. 
The troops were made prisoners of war, and to the number 
of eight thousand laid down their arms. The Eussians 
entered the fortress by the breach on the first of July, 
and there were found on the ramparts, two hundred and 
thirty-eight pieces of cannon, besides thirty-one on board 
the flotilla in the harbour. 

The apathy of the Turks or the incapacity of Eedschid 
Pasha, or perhaps both, appeared conspicuously at this 
juncture. In the beginning of August, when Silistria fell, 
there were only 18,000 troops in the fortress of Schumla, 
and the eastern passes of the Balkan between it and the 
sea, were occupied only by three thousand men. 

The Balkan, the Mount Hsemus of antiquity, which 
stretches from east to west, the whole breadth of Turkey, 
presents the very greatest obstacles to an invading army. 
This range is far inferior to the Pyrenees, the Alps, or the 
Caucasus, in altitude and ruggedness; but it is superior to 
either in the difficulties which it opposes to the march of 
armies. The Alps never prevented the march of the French 
into Italy; the Caucasus was penetrated by the Eussians; 
even the Himalaya was pierced by the battalions of Britain. 
But the hills of Torres-Vedras presented an impassable 
barrier to the armies of Napoleon. 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 289 

The highest summits of the Balkans attain an elevation 
of not less than 9,600 feet. These are covered with im- 
mense masses of naked granite and accumulations of debris. 
In Servia and Bulgaria, the heights are covered with forests. 
In general, however, this chain is not much higher than the 
Lammermoors in Scotland, or the Vosges mountains near 
Kaiserslautern. This mountain range runs nearly parallel 
to the Danube, at from forty to fifty miles to the south, 
and presents a wooded and intricate ridge about thirty miles 
broad, which must be crossed before the plains of Boumelia 
are reached. The mountains are intersected by gullies and 
watercourses, and are generally covered with forests, and 
thickets of brushwood. The very benignity of the climate 
augments its defensible character. There are twelve or 
fifteen mountain paths over the Balkans, but only five are 
practicable for carriages or artillery. These are the old 
Boman road from Constantinople by Sophia and Belgrade 
to Vienna, two from Ternova, and two from Schumla, by 
Karnabat and Aidos. Those from Ternova are the most 
difficult. That by Aidos is the most frequented. The 
mountains there are about 3,000 feet high ; and the sum- 
mit-level of the road is not above half that height. The 
hills are chiefly conical, and generally covered with oak and 
beech trees of a very large size, and the valleys are clothed 
with evergreens. The difficulty that an invading army 
must encounter before it can cross such mountain passes as 
those described, may readily be supposed ; and strange to 
say, the Turks had made no preparations adequate even to 
defend such a barrier. The Grand Vizier, at this crisis, 
fell into the same error, which had formerly been fatal to so 
many Turkish generals, in conceiving that what had hitherto 
been the plans of the enemy would, in similar circumstances, 
still continue to be acted upon. Thus preoccupied with 
the idea that Schumla was the real object of attack, he 
believed that it would prove the vital point, as it had hitherto 
done in all preceding campaigns. Unmindful of the enemy's 
attack on Varna, Pravadi, and Sizepolis, which clearly indi- 
cated that a serious attempt was to be made in that direction, 
and of the invaluable advantages the invading army would 
derive from its communication with the fleet, should it 

T 



290 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



advance by the coast road, the Grand Vizier had only 3,000 
men and 12 guns to oppose the corps of Both and Budiger, 
when they arrived with 20,000 men at the entrance of the 
pass that leads by the valley of Kamtjik, from the northern 
side, and crosses the ridge between Kouprikios and Aidos. 

Diebitch determined immediately to force the passage. 
Each soldier was supplied with four days' provisions, and ten 
days' more were put into the waggons which followed each 
regiment, and the march began on the 17th July. The 
small body of Turks were easily overthrown, and they left 
all their guns and five hundred prisoners in the hands of the 
Bussians. No obstacle remained to interrupt the passage. 
Arriving at the summit, the Bussian troops obtained a view 
of the whole southern slopes of the Balkan,- with the bay of 
Burgos, covered with their sails, and embosomed with wood- 
clad hills, which formed the eastern extremity of the ridge. 
The corps of Both occupied Bourgas, while that of Budi- 
ger, on the right, entered Aidos. 

The Grand Vizier, when too late, discovered his mistake. 
He despatched ten thousand men to guard the pass above 
Kouprikios ; but they arrived only to return the mournful 
intelligence that the passage was already won. 

The position of Diebitch was fraught with the most im- 
minent danger. Such was the dispersion of the forces neces- 
sary for keeping up his communications, over his immense 
lines, from Silistria to Aidos, a distance of one hundred and 
fifty miles, and from Bourgas to Selimno, a distance of above 
eighty miles, that the disposable force to the south of the 
Balkan did not exceed twenty-one thousand men. In front 
of these were twenty thousand Turks. On their right flank 
was the Pasha of Scodra, who might ere long be expected 
with twenty-five thousand Arnouts and Albanians, and in 
their rear was the Grand Vizier with eighteen thousand in 
the intrenched camp at Schumla. There was no middle 
course between dictating a glorious peace or total ruin. 
Such was the anxiety felt at St. Petersburg, that the Em- 
peror ordered a fresh levy of ninety thousand men, and con- 
tracted a loan of £2,000,000 in Holland for the prosecution 
of the war. Diebitch succeeded in concealing his real weak- 
ness from the Turks, and he continued to advance with little 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



291 



opposition, and such were his successes, that he resolved to 
march on Adrianople. 

The Turkish army, twenty thousand strong, deceived by 
the exaggerated reports which had been spread of Diebitch's 
army, retired to the ridge of low hills twenty-five miles in 
front of Constantinople, and the Russians continued to ad- 
vance by forced marches, generally twenty miles a-day, 
down the course of the river Tomalia towards the city. On 
the troops pressed with ceaseless vigour, over rugged and 
almost impassable roads, and under the ardent rays of the 
sun, which shone forth with uncommon brilliancy. Such is 
the fickle nature of the Ottoman character, and so suddenly 
do they pass from one extreme to another, that the peasants 
of the country beheld with transports, the troops of the con- 
queror. On the 19th August 1829, the Russian army 
entered the ancient capital of the Muscovites. The Russian 
general passed the gates in triumph, and took up his resi- 
dence in the palace recently prepared for Sultan Mahmoud. 

The better to impose upon the Turks, the Russian gene- 
ral spread out his army in every direction. It extended its 
arms from the Euxine to the Mediterranean, across the 
entire breadth of Turkey, and was supported by a fleet at 
the extremity of either flank ; the reserve blockaded eight- 
teen thousand men in Schumla, while its advanced guard 
threatened Constantinople. Had the Turks retained any- 
thing of their ancient enthusiasm, or had they been united 
in the common object of self-defence, a terrible catastrophe 
might have awaited the army of Diebitch. In confirmation 
of this remark, it is only necessary to refer to the sudden 
irruption of the Pasha of Scodra, who in the end of Septem- 
ber appeared on the scene at the head of twenty-five thou- 
sand men, and declared his intention of breaking off the pro- 
posed peace. The surprise and alarm that this sudden ap- 
parition occasioned to the Russian commander-in-chief was 
such, that he instantly ordered forward all the troops that 
could be collected in Wallachia, and desired General 
Kisselef to cease the blockade of Schumla and join the 
army at Adrianople. The latter succeeded in pushing 
through the pass of Anatza and getting in behind the Pasha 
in the neighbourhood of Sophia ; still he continued his ad- 



292 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



vance, declaring that he would be at Adrianople in eight 
days. He had already got to Herrnanli, half way from 
Philippoli to that city, when he was met by the messenger 
of the Sultan with the ratification of the treaty. This 
nevertheless revealed the depth of the abyss from which the 
Kussian army was rescued from the want of co-operation in 
the Turkish commanders. It is the opinion of no mean au- 
thority, that had the Pasha advanced a month sooner, no- 
thing could have saved the Russians from a disaster similar 
to the Moscow retreat. The Pasha belonged to the old 
party of the Janizaries, and his object was to hang back till 
the necessities of the Sultan enabled him to make terms for 
the restoration of that body ; but he lost his opportunity by 
delaying too long. 

In the middle of September the force under Diebitch at 
Adrianople did not exceed fifteen thousand men ; and on 
the 8 th November, when they were all mustered for a grand 
review, there were scarcely thirteen thousand men of all 
arms in the field. 

The decisive success of the Russian arms produced an 
immense sensation, not only in Constantinople but over all 
Europe. The English and Austrian ambassadors were 
active in their efforts to bring about an accommodation, by 
moderating the demands of Russia, and overcoming the ob- 
stinacy of the Sultan. Indeed, this anxiety was manifested 
in higher quarters ; for the Duke of Wellington and Prince 
Metternich, the statesmen at the head of their respective 
countries, had entered into a secret convention to avert the 
conquest of Turkey by force of arms ; and accordingly the 
English admiral in the Mediterranean had orders, if Russia 
proved obdurate, to attack the fleet of Admiral Heiden, in 
the Greek waters, and conduct it as a pledge to Malta. 
>The firmness of the Sultan Mahmoud was at last overcome, 
and, with tears in his eyes, he agreed to the treaty of 
Adrianople. 

This was the most disastrous war in which Turkey had 
yet been engaged. The Emperor Nicholas, in deference 
to the jealousy of Europe, had publicly disclaimed all in- 
tention of aggrandizing his dominions ; and yet, by the treaty 
of Adrianople, he acquired the fortresses of Anapa Poli, 



WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1828-29. 



293 



Akhilska, Alzkow, and Akhilkillak, with a considerable por- 
tion of territory round them. In a military point of view 
they constituted most important acquisitions. The islands 
at the mouths of the Danube were also reserved to Eussia. 
All the privileges and immunities secured by former treaties, 
as well as the conventions relative to Servia, were ratified in 
their fullest extent. The indemnity to be awarded to 
Eussian subjects complaining of arbitrary acts on the part of 
the Turkish government was fixed- at £750,000, payable in 
eighteen months, and that to the Eussian government for 
the expenses of the war at £5,000,000 sterling. The evacu- 
ation of the Turkish territories was not to be completed till 
the indemnities were entirely paid up. 
, Separate articles respecting the principalities were signed 
on the same day, and amount to a virtual surrender of these 
provinces to Eussia. They bear that the Hospodars, who 
had hitherto been elected for seven years, should receive 
their appointments for life ; that the Pashas and officers of 
the Porte in the adjoining provinces were not to be at 
liberty to intermingle in any respect in their concerns ; that 
the middle of the Danube was to be the boundary between 
them to the junction of that river with the Pruth ; that these 
provinces should be exempted from paying contributions in 
corn, provisions, cattle, or timber ; that the Sublime Porte 
engage not to maintain any fortified post or any Mussulman 
establishment on the north of the Danube ; that the towns 
situated on the left bank, including Griurgevo, should be re- 
stored to Wallachia, and their fortifications never rebuilt, 
and all Mussulmans holding possessions on the left bank were 
to be bound to sell them to the natives in the space of eight- 
teen months. The government of the Hospodars was to be 
entirely independent of Turkey. The principalities were to 
be occupied by the Eussian troops till the indemnity was 
fully paid up, for which ten years were allowed ; and to be 
relieved of all tribute to the Porte during their occupation, 
and for two years after it had ceased. 

> The treaty of Adrianople affords a striking instance of 
the encroaching policy which has characterised the cabinet 
of St. Petersburg since the time of Peter the Great. While 
hatching schemes of conquest, and preparing armies for the 



294 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



subjugation of surrounding states, Kussia invariably dis- 
claims all idea of territorial aggrandisement. The Cabinet 
of St. Petersburg has gained the unenviable distinction of 
surpassing all other governments in a false, hypocritical, and 
cunning diplomacy, and that superiority has hitherto been 
turned to good account. The war was undertaken ostensi- 
bly for the benefit of the adherents of the Greek church in 
certain parts of the Turkish empire, but it ended in the 
cession of a valuable territory on the Black Sea and in 
Georgia, including the strongest frontier fortresses of Turkey 
in Asia Minor. The command of the navigation of the Dan- 
ube was secured by the acquisition of the islands at its 
mouth. With a show of moderation the principalities which 
had been overrun were relinquished ; but Russia agreed to 
do so only by the payment of a ruinous indemnity, equal to 
five-sixths of the whole revenue of Turkey, and which seemed 
impossible it could ever defrays The destruction of the 
fortresses and the sale of Mussulman property on the left 
of the Danube, was obviously a step pointing to a trans- 
ference of Moldavia and Wallachia to a Christian govern- 
ment. The stipulated interference in behalf of the Christ- 
ian subjects of the Porte, especially in Servia, Moldavia, and 
Wallachia, was totally inconsistent with anything like inde- 
pendence in a sovereign state, and the absolute and univer- 
sal amnesty in favour of all the subjects of the Porte who 
had been engaged in rebellion, invited the disaffected in 
every part of the Sultan's dominions, to look to St. Peters- 
burg for a shield against the real or supposed injustice of 
their own government. 

When the condition of the Turkish empire at the com- 
mencement of the war, is taken into consideration, it ap- 
pears surprising that the immense forces which Russia 
brought to bear against it, did not, with perfect ease, trample 
the newly levied armies of the Sultan in the dust. The 
Turkish land forces had been exhausted by seven bloody 
campaigns with the Greeks; their marine ruined in the 
battle of Navarino; the Janizaries had been in part de- 
stroyed, and in part alienated, and only twenty thousand of 
the regular troops intended to replace them were as yet 
assembled round the standard of the Prophet. Russia, on 



REBELLION OF MAHOMET ALL 



295 



the other hand had been making preparations for six years : 
she had enjoyed thirteen years of European peace, and a 
hundred and twenty thousand men were assembled on the 
Pruth, ready to wait the signal to march to Constantinople. 
Yet with all these advantages, it required two campaigns 
to reach to Adrianople; and as it was, it was owing to the 
treachery of the Pasha of Scodra, that the daring march to 
Adrianople did not terminate in a disaster second only to 
the Moscow retreat. The strength which Russia put forth 
was immense. A hundred and sixty thousand men crossed 
the Danube in the course of the first campaign. A hundred 
and forty thousand were brought up to reinforce them in 
the second; yet with all this, they could only bring up 
thirty-one thousand men at the decisive battle of Kouleft- 
seha, and when their victorious march was stopped, only 
fifteen thousand were assembled at Adrianople ! The ablest 
military historians estimate their loss at one hundred and 
fifty thousand men. A very small part of this immense 
force perished by the sword; fatigue, sickness, and desertion 
produced the greatest part of the dreadful chasm. < 



REBELLION OF MAHOMET ALL 



Scarcely had the war with Eussia terminated when the 
Ottoman empire was again involved in difficulties, which 
brought about a friendly but dangerous alliance with her 
former enemy. Though nominally professing allegiance to 
the Sultan, the two Pashas of Acre and Egypt had, for 
many years, been nearly independent of his authority. Ma- 
homet Ali of Egypt, though by far the most powerful of 
the two, persevered in a show of reverence and obedience 
to the Sublime Porte. Not so Abdellah of Acre. In 1822 
he boldly threw aside his mask of submission, and at the 
head of an army composed of Arabs, Druses, and merce- 
naries from all parts of the Turkish empire, he endeavoured 
to seize the pashalic of Damascus. The attempt did not suc- 
ceed, and he was compelled to retreat. He shut himself up 
in the strong fortress of Acre, where, by the command of 
the Porte, he was besieged by five neighbouring Pashas. 



296 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

After ten months' siege, Mahomet Ali having become medi- 
ator with the Porte, the daring Abdeliah was pardoned by 
the Sultan, and restored to his former honours, on condition 
of paying a heavy sum of money as a fine. In this trans- 
action Mahomet Ali conceived he had laid both Sultan Mah- 
moud and Abdeliah Pasha under obligations to himself. 
Prom the latter, it is certain, he thenceforward exacted 
more deference than that proud chieftain was inclined to 
pay. At last, in November 1831, the quarrel between 
Mahomet Ali and Abdeliah Pasha of Acre, broke out. 
Proceeding now, without waiting orders from the Porte, an 
Egyptian army laid siege to Acre, and took it on the 27th 
May, 1832, after a bold resistance of six months. The 
fierce Abdeliah was carried as a prisoner of war to Maho- 
met Ali, who treated him with great respect. Abdeliah had 
been anything rather than a submissive or faithful vassal to 
the Sultan; but averse to see Pashas carrying on war on 
their own account, the Sultan reprobated the conduct 
of Mahomet Ali, and espoused the cause of Abdeliah. 
Meanwhile Mahomet s^ent forward his son Ibrahim with an 
Egyptian army, which, almost without resistance, overran 
and occupied Syria, penetrated into Asia Minor, and ad- 
vanced towards the capital of the Turkish empire. The 
struggle in Poland and the popular movements in Europe, 
had for a time diverted the attention of Russia from the 
East, but the revolution in the Ottoman dominions recalled 
her arms to Turkey. The Ottoman throne was shaken, and 
the Sultan was forced to seek foreign aid against his victori- 
ous vassals. Russia not only offered her assistance, but re- 
peatedly and urgently pressed the Sultan to accept it. He 
had too much reason, however, to doubt her good faith, and 
he preferred applying to England and France. Britain was 
not at that time in. a condition to grant the required assist- 
ance. One portion of her then meagre navy was employed 
with Portugal, another on the coast of Holland, and when 
the existence of Turkey was at stake, we had only a few- 
frigates in the Mediterranean. Prance was almost equally 
powerless, and the Sultan urged his suit in vain to govern- 
ments which had not the means of granting it. Left 
without any other alternative, he accepted the proffered 



REBELLION OF MAHOMET ALL 



297 



aid of Bussia,' and a fleet and army, prepared with incre- 
dible speed, found themselves for the first time in the Bos- 
phorus. 

Far from taking care of the strength or the future se- 
curity of the sovereign to whom she extended her protec- 
tion, she left to the other powers, who now found them- 
selves forced to interpose, the task of prescribing limits to 
the victorious Pasha of Egypt. Eussia had no objections 
that the Pasha should appropriate as much of the Turkish 
dominions as his power would enable him to retain, but she 
forbade him to seize the portion which she considered her 
own. When the danger was removed, her fleets and ar- 
mies retired, and a manifesto of the Emperor proclaimed to 
Europe and Asia the singular moderation and magnanimity 
which had induced him to refrain from seizing the capital 
of a friendly sovereign whom he had sent his fleets and ar- 
mies to protect. The Emperor was well aware that, at this 
juncture, he would have found in every nation in Europe, 
an ally to resent the treachery, had it been attempted. 

But Russia was not long in exacting the price of her as- 
sistance and forbearance. > By the treaty of the Unkiar 
SkeilessijARussia formed a defensive alliance, by which Tur- 
key was bound to afford material aid to Bussia in the event 
of her being attacked, and Bussia undertook to protect 
Turkey against any enemy who might attack her. By a 
secret article in the treaty, Turkey undertook to close the 
Dardanelles against foreign ships of war. The effect of 
this treaty was to transfer to Bussia the right of demanding 
the exclusion of ships of war from that channel; for Turkey 
had no longer a right to admit them when Bussia might be 
at war with any naval power. <^ 
^> This treaty constituted Bussia the virtual protector of 
Turkey; and was a step in the process by which Bussia 
has effected the subjugation of almost all the countries she 
has conquered since the reign of Peter I. The discovery 
of this clandestine transaction had produced strong feelings 
of distrust in all the cabinets of Europe, and England and 
France protested against it.< Bussia felt that the just re- 
sentment of the other powers must be appeased by some 
real or apparent sacrifice. She offered to withdraw her 



298 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



troops from Moldavia and Wallachia, having previously 
stipulated that the troops of Turkey should never again 
enter them, and that no Mahometan should reside there. 

In consideration of additional cessions of territory in 
Asia, his Imperial Majesty consented to renounce one-third 
of the indemnity still due, but this third he had promised 
to relinquish when the treaty of Unkiar Skellessi was nego- 
ciated without requiring additional cessions of territory, 
Thus Russia acquired possession of the mountain passes 
that separate Armenia from Georgia, and of the fortresses 
that defend the Turkish frontier. The remainder of the 
indemnity was to be paid in smaller instalments, and by 
this arrangement, Silistria, which Eussia held in pledge for 
the whole amount, would therefore remain so much longer 
in her hands. 

Shortly after the suppression of the rebellion of Mahomet 
Ali, and the withdrawal of the Eussian forces from Con- 
stantinople, this audacious and powerful chief again threat- 
ened the permanent dismemberment of the Ottoman em- 
pire. The Turkish forces had repeatedly been beaten — 
their fleet had been treacherously delivered over to the 
Viceroy of Egypt. Ibrahim Pasha had overrun Syria, had 
invaded Mesopotamia, established Mahomet Ali's authority 
in Arabia, and threatened to advance upon Constantinople. 

In the midst of these disasters, Sultan Mahmoud had died, 
and, when the youthful Abdul Medjid ascended the throne, 
it appeared, that unless assisted by his allies, he would be 
forced to submit to such conditions as his rebellious vassals 
might impose. 

By his enlightened policy and the energy of his govern- 
ment, Mahomet Ali had increased to an extraordinary ex- 
tent the naval and military power of Egypt. He had 
196,000 under arms, of which 155,000 were disciplined 
troops, and twenty-one ships of the line, and nine large 
frigates. This imposing force, together with the civil and 
warlike talents of the Pasha, led some of the European states- 
men to speculate on the possible regeneration of the Ottoman 
empire in his hands. Great Britain, however, regarded 
the power of Mahomet Ali as destitute of all the moral ele- 
ments of stability, and believed that if the present difficulties 



REBELLION OF MAHOMET ALL 



299 



could be overcome, Turkey would yet maintain and 
strengthen her position in Europe. She regarded the re- 
volt and the success of the Pasha of Egypt as dangerous to 
the balance of power; and desiring to maintain the integrity 
of Turkey, proposed to reduce the Pasha to obedience, and 
to re-establish the Sultan's authority in that portion of his 
dominions in which his rebellious vassal had usurped the 
government. 

France as well as England desired to preserve the Otto- 
man empire, and was prepared to concert with the other 
powers, to defend Constantinople and the throne of the 
Sultan against any attack that might be made bv Mahomet 
Ali. 

. On the 27th July 1839, the four great powers presented 
to the Porte a collective note, which assured the Sultan of 
their protection. The Sultan was requested, if he invited 
to Constantinople the naval or military forces of any other 
power, to permit the French fleet to pass the Dardanelles. 
The statesmen then at the head of the French government, 
more openly than any other cabinet, expressed their distrust 
of Eussia ; and having formed an exaggerated estimate of 
the power of Mahomet Ali, or at all events, differing from 
the other cabinets upon the question, they would have pre- 
ferred the hereditary possession of Syria and Egypt by 
Mahomet Ali and his descendanls, rather than have allowed 
a Bussian military force to enter Asia Minor and Syria. 
They believed that the Pasha could successfully resist any 
means of coercion that Great Britain and Austria could 
bring to bear upon him, 

Eussia finding herself pledged by the treaty of Unkiar 
Skellessi to protect Turkey, eagerly accepted the proposition 
of the British government to join in coercive measures against 
the rebellious Pasha. Baron Brunnow, her most accom- 
plished diplomatist, forthwith arrived at London, to effect a 
cordial reconciliation between the courts, founded upon the 
coincidence of their views and objects in the Levant. The 
baron offered the virtual renunciation of the treaty of Un- 
kiar Skellessi on the condition that the great powers would 
unite to protect the Sultan, and to enforce the acceptance 
by Mahomet Ali of such an arrangement as might be agreed 



300 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



upon in concert with the Sultan. Russia knew that Austria 
and Prussia were ready to join the alliance, and that, inde- 
pendent of the reasons assigned by France for disapproving 
of coercive measures, there were domestic considerations that 
would prevent her government from accepting the proposals 
of England. Russia, therefore, contemplated not only her 
own reconciliation with Great Britain, but the probable iso- 
lation of France. The British government strove to avoid 
this result, but their hopes were not realised. 

When the part to be assigned to each in the co-operation 
came to be discussed, the Russian envoy proposed that, if 
armed intervention should be necessary, "the defence of 
Constantinople and the Bosphorus should be assigned to 
Russia alone." Lord Palmerston required that in such an 
event the Dardanelles should be open to the fleets of the co- 
operating powers, when the Bosphorus was opened to the 
Russian forces. But this was a demand which the baron 
was not authorised to concede. In the meantime he urged 
the necessity of active measures, " leaving the question about 
the Dardanelles to be settled if and when it should arrive." 
The British minister rejected the proposal, and made the 
acquiescence of Russia in his demands as to the Dardanelles 
a sine qua non. At last it was agreed " that a point should 
be determined in the Sea of Marmora, beyond which the 
ships of war permitted to pass the Dardanelles should not 
be at liberty to advance towards Constantinople and the 
Bosphorus." 

> The proposed convention was concluded at London on the 
15th July 1840, between Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, 
Russia, and Turkey. The four powers engaged to unite 
their efforts in order to compel Mahomet Ali to conform to 
the arrangement agreed upon.< They recognised "the 
ancient rule of the Ottoman empire, in virtue of which it 
has at all times been prohibited for ships of war of foreign 
powers to enter the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bos- 
phorus," and engaged to respect it. The Sultan undertook 
"to maintain this principle as long as the Porte was at 
peace, to admit no foreign ships of war into the straits of the 
Bosphorus and Dardanelles." 

^ Thus was the treaty surreptitiously exacted from the Porte 



REBELLION OF MAHOMET ALL 



301 



at Unkiar Skellessi in 1833 tacitly set aside in 1840, the 
command of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles restored to 
Turkey on its ancient footing, and the guardianship of the 
four powers substituted for the exclusive protection of Eussia. < 

The surrender of the great fortress of Acre to Admiral 
Stopford in a few hours, and the success of the naval and 
military operations in Syria, conducted by Commodore 
Napier, accomplished in a few weeks the objects contem- 
plated by the treaty of London, and thereby demonstrated 
the real weakness of Mahomet Ali, and the moral influence 
of the Sultan. The authority of the Sultan was established 
on a firm basis without affording any occasion for the active 
intervention of Eussia. The Ottoman empire was thus 
saved, if not from utter ruin, at least from anarchy and 
hopeless prostration. 

The shock which Turkey had received awoke her from 
the dream of internal security into which she had fallen. 
The increased intercourse with Europe which her danger 
led her to cultivate, enlightened and enlarged the views of 
many of her ablest men. Her Mahometan subjects felt 
and acknowledged the insufficiency of the ancient system, 
and were prepared for the more liberal toleration which 
the government desired to establish. The exigencies of 
her position had made it necessary to conciliate all classes 
of her subjects by more careful attention to the equality 
of justice of the administration, and the Sultan and his 
advisers were enabled to proceed without obstruction in 
a prudent and progressive course of amelioration. The 
result has been that, of the despotic governments of Europe, 
there is perhaps not one in which the civil and fiscal admin- 
istrations are more just, or less oppressive or vexatious than 
in Turkey* The loyalty of her population has become 
warmer, and her Christian subjects are now aware that their 
condition would not be improved by exchanging the govern- 
ment of Turkey for that of any of her neighbours. As these 
changes have steadily advanced, the resources of the country 
have been gradually developed, and its commerce has ex- 
tended from year to year. Seminaries of instruction in lit- 
erature, science, and the arts have been established, and 
the learning of Europe has been made accessible to many 



302 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



by the study of foreign languages. A body of military 
officers of respectable acquirements, and capable of being 
compared in that respect with^ those of some nations of 
higher pretensions, have been trained in the military schools ; 
in short, it may not be too much to say that the progress of 
Turkey in all that indicates advancement in the art of 
governing well, is such, that several of the Christian nations 
of Europe cannot pretend to boast of, and would do well to 
imitate. This steady progress has been effected in the face 
of difficulties systematically aggravated and multiplied by 
the intrigues, and active, though secret hostility of Eussia. 



RUSSIAN AGGRESSION THE PRESENT WAR. 

In a previous chapter of this narrative the rapid and 
striking extension of the Russian empire since the accession 
of Peter I. in 1689, has been briefly stated. It will readily 
be observed that Turkey has not been the greatest sufferer 
by the steady and stealthy aggrandisement of Russia; nor 
is the Ottoman empire the only state that is interested in 
setting limits to Muscovite aggression. The ambition and 
savage energy of Peter I. led him to contemplate the most 
extensive and daring projects. These projects he bequeathed 
to his successors; and although the crown has frequently 
been transferred by open violence or secret crime from one 
head to another, yet each successive sovereign, with hardly 
an exception, has made some progress towards the attain- 
ment of these objects, and they continue to be prosecuted 
with unabated avidity. 

The designs of Peter were to raise Russia upon the ruins 
of Turkey, to obtain exclusive possession of the Caspian and 
the Black Seas, with the Bosphorus and Dardanelles; to 
extend his dominions beyond the Caucasus ; to establish an 
ascendency in Persia, with a view to open the road to India. 
The pertinacity and success with which a predetermined 
course of aggrandisement has been prosecuted, is without a 
parallel in the history of nations. Russia now begins to 
assume a sort of prescriptive right to carry out her designs, 
and she effects to regard as unreasonable and presumptuous 



RUSSIAN AGGRESSION — THE PRESENT WAR. 303 



the right of other powers not to permit her to set at defiance 
the international laws established among civilized states, and 
to trample, in the persuit of her lawless ambition, upon the 
acknowledged rights of independent powers. 

The uniform pertinacity and caution of Kussia are no less 
remarkable, than the means are dishonourable which she 
has employed to obtain her acquisitions. The first step to- 
wards aggrandisement, is a process of disorganization by 
means of corruption and secret agency, pushed so far, that 
disorder and civil contentions necessarily arise. These are 
followed by military occupation under the pretence of re- 
storing tranquillity, and this friendly protection is followed 
by incorporation. Such are some of the means by which 
Poland, Finland, the Crimea, Georgia, and other states have 
been added to the Kussian dominions. The Caspian sea 
she has appropriated to herself ; the plains of Tartary have 
excited her cupidity, while several states of Europe and 
Asia have been dismembered to augment her dominion. 
The acquisitions she has made from Sweden, are greater 
than what remains of that kingdom ; her share of Poland is 
as large as the whole Austrian empire; the territory she 
has wrested from Turkey in Europe, is nearly equal in 
extent to the dominions of Prussia; the provinces she has 
acquired from Turkey in Asia, are as large as all the smaller 
states of Germany, the Rhenish provinces, Belgium, and Hol- 
land taken together. In the further pursuit of her schemes 
in the East, she has conquered from Persia states equal in 
area to England; and her acquisitions from Tartary are as 
large as Turkey in Europe, Greece, Italy, and Spain. In 
the last eighty-two years, the territory she has acquired is 
greater in extent and importance than the whole empire she 
had in Europe before that time. 

The facility with which the Russian army has crossed the 
Pruth, and descended upon Turkey, is sufficiently indicative 
of the danger to which Constantinople is exposed. The 
attitude she has assumed in Asia, in having acquired the 
possession of the mountain passes and of the fortresses on 
the frontiers of Armenia, indicates her designs on Asiatic 
Turkey. The Araxis is only nominally her southern 
frontier in Asia. She possesses important positions to 



304 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



the south of that river, which although of no real value, 
afford her the utmost facility for future aggression. In 1834 
she threatened to occupy Ghilan, one of the most valuable 
parts of Persia, as the security for the payment of £250,000 
of indemnity still due to her. At a previous period the 
Russian general Paskewitch finding himself at Erzerum, on 
the banks of a branch of the Euphrates, and not far from 
the Tigris, conceived the project of descending these rivers 
and occupying the modern capital of Assyria and Mesopo- 
tamia. This enterprise however was not abandoned from 
any want of desire to carry it into execution. Owing to 
the critical position of Diebitch on the Balkan, it was thought 
advisable under the circumstances not to hazard a failure 
on the side of Asia. By every movement in Persia, Russia 
is weakening the power of Turkey; and in concert with 
her aggressive policy in Europe, she has long been pre- 
paring the means for the final subjugation of the Ottoman 
empire. 

Independent of the ultimate consequences which might 
flow from an undue ascendency of Russia in Asiatic Turkey, 
the immediate interests of Great Britain are at stake. By the 
position which Russia occupies on the Araxis, she has advanced 
within nine miles of the onty line of communication by which 
British manufactures to the value of two millions sterling 
are yearly carried through Turkey into Persia, and within 
ninety miles of Trebizond, on the Black Sea, the port from 
which it leads. The effect of the possession of this impor- 
tant highway by Russia, may be inferred from her commer- 
cial system generally. She is our rival in the markets of 
Persia, and she has put a stop to the transit trade through 
Georgia, because it interfered with her trade with Persia 
carried on by the Caspian, of which she has exclusive com- 
mand. Independent, therefore, of the intrigues of Russia 
in Persia, with the design to push her frontiers towards the 
east, and to increase her power in the countries bordering 
the Indus, Great Britain has a direct and immediate inter- 
est, besides the duty she owes to Turkey, in securing the 
independence of the countries to the east of the Euxine, and 
in erecting a permanent barrier between Russia and the 
Turkish and Persian empires. 



RUSSIAN AGGRESSION — THE PRESENT WAR. 305 

In Europe, Eussia has been no less industrious in prepar- 
ing the way for the subjugation of the northern provinces 
of Turkey. Bulgaria, stretching along the southern banks 
of the Danube, from above Widdin to the Euxine, for nearly 
four hundred miles, is a rich and beautiful country, and in- 
habited by about two millions of Bulgarians, Sclavonians, 
and Turks, Its exports are considerable, and it has iron 
mines of great value, which have for centuries been success- 
fully worked ; and the neighbouring countries are supplied 
with its manufactures of iron and leather. In the principal 
town, Sophia, the clang of the hammer is incessant. The 
peasant population are industrious, cleanly, and prosperous; 
they are better dressed, better housed, and in easier circum- 
stances than the agricultural population of most of the other 
countries in Europe. There is nowhere a Sclavonic peasant 
population of nearly equal amount, that in these respects can 
bear comparison with the peasants of Bulgaria which have 
been subject to the Turks for five hundred years. In Russia 
there is nowhere a body of peasants, bond or free, Greek, 
Latin, or Lutheran, who, in their most ambitious dreams, 
could have imagined, far less aspired to, the material welfare 
of the Bulgarian. But Russia has already commenced her 
demoralizing system in that country. An English gentle- 
man who visited Bulgaria a few years ago, for the purpose 
of inquiring into the causes of a contest between the Chris- 
tians and the Mahometans in the districts near Widdin, 
found that it had been produced by the active intrigues of 
secret foreign agency, exciting the Christians to revolt, and 
at the same time inflaming the anger of the Mahometans, 
and urging them on to acts of violence. After the distur- 
bances had been suppressed, the same gentleman pays a 
high compliment to the forbearance and tact of the Turkish 
government, as furnishing a profitable lesson to the other 
cabinets of Europe, which have been similarly situated, but 
have acted differently. But these are not the most dan- 
gerous means of demoralizing the population to which Rus- 
sia has recourse. " She employs/' he says, " her ecclesiastics 
in an organized scheme to poison the minds of the rising 
generation, and has taken advantage of the religious toler- 
ation of Turkey, to convert the schools for religious instruc- 

u 



306 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 3 

tion into seminaries for inculcating treason. It is by edu- 
cation that this deep-laid scheme is in the course of active 
execution; no less than twenty-one schools have been in- 
stituted of late in different towns of Bulgaria for this pur- 
pose; the teachers have all come from Kiew in Bussia. 
Hatred to the Sultan, and attachment to the Czar, are 
assiduously taught; and their catechism in the Sclavonic 
tongue, which was translated to me, is more political than 
religious, while it openly alludes to the incorporation of 
Bulgaria in the Kussian empire." Such is the protection 
which Bussia demands that the Sultan shall give her a right 
to exercise over the Greek church in Turkey, and which 
Russia requires the Sultan to engage himself by a treaty 
with her to maintain. It is while making religious instruc- 
tion the instrument of her perfidy that she complains of the 
injustice of suspecting that her acquisition of the right to 
protect 11,000,000 of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, 
can in any degree interfere with his sovereign rights, or the 
security and tranquillity of the Ottoman empire. It is only 
affirming a simple fact to say, that the integrity and inde- 
pendence of Turkey, and the concession of that demand, 
are totally incompatible with each other. 

It is well known that the Principalities of Wallachia and 
Moldavia, which Bussia now occupies for the eighth time, 
have long excited her cupidity. These countries, remark- 
able for their fertility, contain a population of nearly two 
millions. In all ages they have had a largejsurplus of grain 
to dispose of, and were the granaries of the legions of Tra- 
jan, as they have been of the Bussian armies. During the 
last eighty-five years, they have been occupied more than 
thirty by the Muscovite armies, and have been the battle- 
field of the Bussian and the Turk in not less than twenty 
campaigns. For nearly a quarter of a century they have 
been exempted from the evils of war, and their produce has 
continued to increase, and the trade, especially with Eng- 
land, to extend. The first cargo of corn taken by an Eng- 
lish ship, was shipped at Galatz in 1834. From two 
hundred and fifty to three hundred now find cargoes annu- 
ally at that port and Brahilow, and, together with foreign 
vessels engaged in the trade, bring to this country above 



RUSSIAN AGGRESSION — THE PRESENT WAR. 307 



five thousand quarters of grain, besides other produce. 
About two hundred thousand quarters find their way 
to Britain through indirect channels. The whole of our 
imports from these countries are paid for in British manu- 
factures, and the trade has been extending every year. 
The total export of grain from Wallachia and Moldavia now 
amounts to nearly five millions of quarters. The obstruc- 
tions in the navigation of the Danube arising through the 
premeditated designs of Bussia, operates largely against the 
Principalities as well as against all the grain-producing 
countries to the west. The object which the Emperor of 
Bussia has in view in fettering and interrupting the free 
navigation of this important river, is to draw, if possible, 
all the commerce of the Euxine to Odessa, and thereby ag- 
grandize his own empire at the expense of adjoining states. 
It becomes therefore a matter of the utmost importance, 
not only to Turkey but to the whole of western and central 
Europe, that henceforth Bussia shall exercise no control 
over the navigation of the Danube. 

Bussia, then, has taken possession of these important 
provinces, as a " material guarantee," that Turkey shall ful- 
fil the stipulations contained in former treaties, according 
to the interpretation put upon them by Bussia, to the 
effect, that the Sultan shall absolutely transfer the right of 
protection of his Christian subjects to the Emperor of Bussia. 
The question of the " Holy Places 93 need scarcely be men- 
tioned: it was speedily adjusted to the satisfaction of all 
concerned; yet this question of the Holy Places was the 
ostensible reason of Prince MenchikofFs embassy, and the 
only one made known by the Czar. 

It w T ould be as uninteresting as it is unnecessary to enter 
into an examination of the grounds upon which the Em- 
peror of Bussia founds an excuse for the invasion of Tur- 
key ; suffice it to say, that his armies have occupied part of 
the Turkish territory in contempt of the public law, and 
the unanimous opinion of Europe. Statements the most 
unfounded have been put forth, in hopeless attempts to ex- 
cuse so revolting a violation of good faith ; and manifestoes 
have been published, which all Europe knows to be menda- 



308 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



cious, bearing the signature of a Christian sovereign, the 
Head of a Christian church ! 

When the Eussian army entered the principalities in 1853, 
the Turks, as in 1828, offered no opposition, but contented 
themselves with strengthening and occupying in force the 
fortresses on the Danube. It was an opinion generally 
entertained that the Turks would be totally incapable of 
offering a successful resistance to the numerous and disci- 
plined armies of Eussia ; but this opinion has been totally 
controverted. 

In a succession of brilliant actions upon the Danube, in 
which the talents of their commander and the bravery and 
discipline of their troops have been equally conspicuous, the 
Turks, in every instance, have been victorious ; and finally, 
after a desperate attack upon Silistria, in which their whole 
available strength was put forward, the battalions of Eussia 
have recoiled before the Ottoman arms. 

If France and England have been tardy in accepting the 
combat, it may be considered as an indication that they 
foresaw the magnitude and importance of the contest. Now 
that a hundred thousand Anglo-French troops are marching 
to the immediate theatre of hostilities, that the allied fleets, 
the most powerful which the world has yet seen, seal her- 
metically every port in Eussia, from the Black Sea to the 
Northern Ocean, that Austria, from a doubtful neutrality, 
has assumed an attitude of hostility to the Czar, the defeat 
and total discomfiture of Eussia can surely not be far dis- 
tant. Human thought cannot foresee the ultimate effects 
of the present contest upon the destinies of the East, but 
for the present, the integrity and independence of the Otto- 
man empire is secure. 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND CHARAC- 
TER OF THE TURKS. 

There are two distinct races in Turkey — the Mahometan 
and the Christian. There are three or four millions of the 
former in Europe scattered over a territory containing twelve 
or thirteen millions of the latter, yet this small proportion of 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, &C. 



309 



the followers of Mahomet hold all the rest in entire subjec- 
tion. It is a fundamental maxim of the Turkish govern- 
ment, that the Mussulmans alone are to be called upon to 
combat either foreign or domestic enemies ; but the Chris- 
tians are to be made to contribute to the expense of the 
armaments, and to uphold by their industry the strength of 
the empire : they are all armed and ready to become 
soldiers ; they are in possession of the whole fortresses, har- 
bours, and strongholds of the kingdom, and they have the 
command of the government, the treasury, the capital, and 
the great cities, while there is a complete unity of action 
and identity of purpose in the dominant race. 

The Christians are composed of a vast variety of tribes 
and races, who have no community of kindred, feelings, 
language or interests, and thus the Turks without difficulty 
maintain the ascendency. But if the whole military strength 
of the empire depends upon the Turks, the whole civil ad- 
ministration, negotiations, pacific institutions, letters, the 
arts, commerce, manufactures, industry, navigation, are all 
in the hands of the Christians. Nothing can more clearly 
demonstrate the inevitable ascendency of mind over matter, 
of intelligence over physical strength, than the destinies of 
the Greek people. 

One great cause of the weakness of the Ottoman empire 
is, that it is not in fact, one state, in the European sense of 
the word. It is rather an aggregate of separate states, 
owing only a nominal allegiance to the central power, and 
only yielding it effective support when the vigour or ca- 
pacity of the ruling Sultan leaves them no alternative but to 
render it. The Pashas, indeed, are often in substance inde- 
pendent ; they pay only a fixed tribute to the Sultan, and 
they are bound to send, in case of need, a certain body of 
troops to his support. They generally delay as long as pos- 
sible, and when they do arrive, they are not unfrequently 
too late. Czerny George, at the head of the strength of 
Servia, maintained a prolonged contest with the Ottoman 
forces. Ali Pashi, the " Lion of Janina/' long set the whole 
power of the Sultan at defiance. The treachery of the 
Pasha of Scodra and the disaffection of other Pashas, brought 
about the disasters of 1829. The Pasha of Egypt, by whose 



310 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



aid alone the balance was cast against the Greeks in 1827, 
brought the dominions of the Osmanlis to the verge of ruin, 
from whence they were rescued by the intervention, still 
more perilous, of Eussia. 

There cannot possibly be a stronger proof of the long mal- 
administration of Turkey, than the extremely small amount of 
the public revenue, compared with its extent and material re- 
sources, — the entire amount of which is from £6,000,000 to 
£7,000,000. It is raised by a tithe on agricultural produce 
and animals, and a tax of 17 per cent, on incomes, in all 27 
per cent, on landed property. In ancient times the Turkish 
empire maintained four times its present inhabitants and 
yielded five times the present revenue. 

Russia, however, with all its boasted power and its vast 
territory and its 60,000,000 of inhabitants, does not yield a 
revenue treble the present revenue of Turkey. The genius of 
Turkish policy is purely Asiatic. The Sultan is entirely 
despotic, and unites within himself, like the first Caliphs, the 
whole temporal and spiritual power of the state. In Turkey 
birth confers no privileges. The Sultan is the sole fountain 
of honour, and he humbles and exalts whom he will, and he 
can dispose of the lives and properties of his subjects. But 
it is not to be supposed that the power of the monarch is 
continually exerted in acts of violence, injustice, and cruelty. 
Under political constitutions of every species, unless when 
some frantic tyrant happens to hold the sceptre, the ordinary 
administration of the government must be conformable to 
the principles of justice ; and if not active in promoting the 
welfare of the people, cannot certainly have their destruction 
for its object. Under the Turkish government the political 
condition of every subject is equal. To be employed in the 
service of the Sultan is the only circumstance that confers 
distinction, and this distinction is so closely annexed to the 
station in which any individual serves that it is scarcely com- 
municated to the person of him who fills it. The highest 
dignity in the empire does not give any rank or pre-eminence 
to the family of him who enjoys it. As every man, before he 
is raised to any station of authority, must go through the pre- 
paratory discipline of a long and servile obedience, the mo- 
ment he is deprived of power, he returns to the same con- 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, &C. 311 

dition with other subjects, and sinks back into obscurity. 
It is the distinguishing and odious character of Eastern des- 
potism, that it annihilates all other ranks of men, in order 
to exalt the monarch ; that it leaves nothing to the former, 
while it gives everything to the latter; that it endeavours 
to fix in the minds of those who are subject to it, the idea 
of no relation between men, but that of a master and slave, 
the master to command and to punish, the slave to tremble 
and obey. The Turkish casuists declare that the Sultan is 
above the law, and attribute to him a character of holiness 
which no immoral conduct can destroy, and his actions are 
regarded as prescribed by inevitable fate. 

There can, indeed, be no constitutional restraint upon the 
w T ill of a prince in a despotic government ; but there may 
be such as are accidental. Absolute as the Turkish Sultans 
are, they find themselves, to a certain extent, circumscribed 
both by religion, the principle on which their authority is 
founded, and by the army, the instrument which they must 
employ in order to maintain it. The power of the Sultan 
is supposed to be balanced in some degree by the Grand 
Mufti and Ulema, the former called prelate of Orthodoxy, 
the latter, the judges and ministers of religion; but as 
Baron de Tott observes, though they can interpret the law 
as they please, and animate the people against their sovereign ; 
he, on the other hand, can with a single word depose and 
banish the Mufti and as many of the Ulema as may fall 
under his displeasure. Such restraints form but a feeble 
barrier against the sallies of passion, pride and selfishness, 
supported by unlimited power ; and hence the Sultan is 
styled by his subjects, " The unmuzzled lion." 

The most natural, the most powerful and effectual check 
to tyranny, is found to reside in the people. Hence, the 
mob of Constantinople has compelled the sovereigns to listen 
to the public voice and to hear truths which none of their 
ministers had dared to breathe. The tumultuous movements 
of a populace, however, seldom stop with the redress of 
grievances ; and in Turkey especially, they have not un- 
frequently been followed by the deposition or execution of 
the monarch himself. 

Since the time of Soliman the evils of absolute power 



312 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



have been greatly aggravated in Turkey, by the ignorance 
and effeminacy of those who are called to exercise it. The 
princes of the blood are confined in the Cafsse, a palace in 
the Seraglio, attended by only four or five eunuchs as 
their pages, and a few female slaves old enough not to be- 
come mothers. With minds uncultivated by education, and 
bodies enervated by idleness and indulgence, they are 
little prepared for the important and difficult duties which 
may await them ; and when they are called to the throne, 
they often abandon the affairs of state to the mercy of a 
page or a black eunuch, rendered hideous by his physical 
impotence, who becomes the dispenser of the dignities of 
the empire. When the sovereign of the Ottoman empire, 
therefore, at any time rises superior to the difficulties of his 
situation, and directs with energy and discretion the affairs 
of the state, he must be possessed of no common talents. 

The civil government of Turkey is carried on by a Vizier 
and other ministers, who form a divan, or grand council of 
state, which, on solemn occasions, is called upon to direct 
the sovereign by their advice. The Grand Vizier, the Lord 
High Admiral, two military judges, the Grand Treasurer, 
the Chief of the war department, the Grand Purveyor, and 
the Nishandji Effendi, who affixes the seal of the Grand 
Seignior to public acts, are the members of this body. All 
the affairs of the empire come under the inspection of the 
Grand Vizier. He is the supreme judge in civil and crimi- 
nal affairs, from whose sentence there is* no appeal. But 
his responsibility is in proportion to his duty. He is held 
responsible alike by the people and the sovereign for all the 
misfortunes which befall the state, and such is the danger 
to which this minister is exposed, that, especially during the 
decline of the Turkish empire, he rarely escaped confiscation 
or exile, or a sudden death. Some remain a day, a week, 
and a month ; others protract the thread to a year or two; 
" but at length," said a Grand Vizier, " they are like the 
ant, to which God gives wings for its speedier destruction/' 

The provinces are governed by Pashas, Sareskiers, Ac/as, 
and Waivodes; these are divided into several ranks, and 
each represents the Sultan within the limits of his own juris- 
diction, and is accountable to the Sultan alone. The revenue, 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, &C. 313 

the administration of justice, and the military force of the 
province, are intrusted to the Pasha, who owes his appoint- 
ment to the Sultan, and is deposed and punished without 
the liberty of complaint or remonstrance. 

The theocratical or spiritual branch of the Ottoman con- 
stitution is exercised by the Uiema, who are selected from a 
body of clerical students, chiefly from Syria and Asia Minor. 
Constantinople alone contains ten thousand of them, and 
they are declared to be the most savage, the most fanatical, 
the most turbulent, and the worst subjects in the empire. 
The officiating ministers of religion form the lowest class. 
Besides these there are several orders of demises, who are 
held in great veneration by the vulgar. " They are," says 
le Bruyn, " loose souls, notorious hypocrites, and commonly 
great drunkards." The Ulema are endowed with great 
privileges. They are exempted from taxes, and their pro- 
perty is hereditary in their families and not liable to con- 
fiscation. When the Sultan wishes the sanction of religion 
to any act of importance, he must obtain their consent ; but 
their consent is a matter of form, or is desirable merely to 
secure more implicit respect from the people. In fact the 
Sultan can command the consent of the Mufti to any mea- 
sure, as his continuance in office depends upon the will of 
the Sultan. 

The laws of this country, both civil and criminal, are 
founded upon the precepts of the Koran; the example and 
opinions of Mahomet ; the precepts of the four first caliphs; 
and the decisions of the learned doctors upon disputed cases. 
These are digested in one large volume under the title of 
Multeka, and form the universal code of the empire. 

Minutely specifying almost all the particulars of govern- 
ment, containing every direction for the regulation of the 
interests of society, as it existed around the dwelling of 
Mahomet, and the cradle of his religion, it is necessarily 
inapplicable to a different state of society, where separate 
interests have arisen, and unforeseen difficulties have emerged. 
The priests are the expounders of the law. The Sultan 
possesses the delegated authority of Mahomet ; and the 
Koran is the supreme code in all matters civil and religious, 
from which there is no appeal. Beform of institutions, 



314 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



therefore, is difficult, in a Mahometan state; for it can be 
attempted only at the hazard of destroying the great bond 
of nationality, Mahometanism itself. 

From the obscurity and ambiguity of many of the injunc- 
tions of the Multeka, much is left to the discretion of the 
judges; and as there is no appeal from their decisions, they 
give themselves little trouble about the niceties of evidence 
or formality of precedent. The mode of administering 
justice is indeed sufficiently simple and expeditious, but 
leads to continual injustice from the ignorance and cupidity 
of the judges. The Cadi or judge determines all matters 
civil, criminal, and ecclesiastical. The decision is prompt 
and final; but it often depends upon the previous bribe, 
more than the justice of the case. " It is difficult to do 
justice," said one Cadi to another, " when one party is 
rich and the other poor." " No," replied his colleague, " I 
find no difficulty in that case, for then I decide, of course, 
for the rich ; the only difficulty is when both are rich, for 
then I do not know to what side to incline." 

The civil and criminal laws of Turkey have been greatly 
improved under the rule of the present Sultan and his pre- 
decessor. The Koran has been interpreted anew, to serve 
the great cause of human advancement. Its direction to 
believers " to bring light from China," has been used to 
sanctify the introduction of the arts of Western Europe; 
and to make the introduction of military science popular, 
Mahometans were reminded that the arms even of the enemy 
might be used against himself. " Provinces/' says a modern 
writer, " that were ravaged bv incessant civil wars ; that 
were by turns a prey to the rapacity of the predominant 
pasha within, or the lust and brutality of armed bandits 
from without, have been brought within the influence of 
Constantinople. Officials who exacted presents and sold 
justice, have been subjected to the utmost rigour of the law. 
The slave market has been suppressed, and slaves have been 
surrounded with the protecting spirit of government, so that 
at the present moment, no master may ill-use them. A 
new and merciful code of laws has been drawn up, and com- 
merce has been re-arranged on the French model." Thus 
it will be seen, that the Turk born in the present time, does 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, &C. 315 

not enter upon a scene so barbarous as that upon which his 
grandfather played a part. — There are indeed a class in 
Turkey, principally capitalists and landowners, who are 
reputed to be a grave, dignified, intensely prejudiced class 
of men; who, in short, may be called the Turkish tories 
who long for the times when the pashas were tyrants ; when 
the slave market was brisk in the open squares of Con- 
stantinople; and when the Koran was interpreted in de- 
fence of oppression and wrong. They look upon all re- 
forms which have been going on during the last thirty 
years as so many hopeless attempts to restore animation to 
a dead body, This class, however, are hospitable, religious, 
and scrupulously moral in life; but they are known to be 
crafty, and when roused, cruel. They are declared fatalists, 
and they see their property fall from them without a mur- 
mur. There are other Ottomans, who vehemently espouse 
the reforms of the Sultan, and wish to place the Turkish 
empire in its proper relation with the civilised states of 
Europe. This enlightened class have encountered many 
difficulties from the bigotry of the old school, and have risen 
from a state of absolute barbarism to one of comparative 
civilization. Thirty years ago, there were relentless confis- 
cations, tyrannical imprisonments, arbitrary judgments, an 
organized system of general robbery, corruption in every 
department of the administration, and irresponsible pashas, 
pillaging at their will. Against all this disorder and wrong, 
Turkish reformers have struggled manfully; and if, at the 
present moment, the Ottoman empire presents a spectacle 
of comparative barbarism in close contrast to advanced 
civilization, the advances it has made during the last thirty 
years, from anarchy to some kind of order and law, tempt 
us to hope, that the nation has fairly commenced that march 
of improvement, which will ere long place it on an equality 
with contemporary states. 

The Multequa was written in the Arabic language in 
1549; and in 1824, it was remodelled and translated into 
the Turkish language. It is divided into eight codes, the 
religious, the political, the military, the civil, the code of 
civil and criminal processes, the penal code, and the code 
which regulates hunting and shooting. 



316 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

The reformed Multequa regulates the treatment of slaves, 
the claims between husband and wife, and the succession to 
property. Slaves are daily decreasing in number; and the 
open slave-traffic is prohibited through the Ottoman empire. 
The slave is allowed to be a witness in a law court, and 
has equal rights before the law with his master. The 
slave may rise to an eminent position in the state, and is 
not, as in America, a creature to be universally shunned. 
The Multequa also provides for the distribution of property 
at death, and proceeds upon principles of justice which 
might be safely followed by those who, perhaps, might de- 
spise to follow a Turkish law. It is also strict in enforcing 
the inviolability of a believer's house, which is nowhere else 
so strictly his castle. " No domiciliary visit can be effected 
in Constantinople under any circumstances without a writ- 
ten order from the Grand Vizier. This order must be 
carried by a legal functionary, accompanied, in the case of 
a Turk, by the Imam of the neighbourhood; in the case of 
a Greek or Armenian, by the superior of his church ; and 
in that of a Jew by the Eabbi ; but whether in a Mussul- 
man's house, or in that of an infidel, the officers may not 
enter the 'women's apartments, until the women have left 
them." 

Previously the punishment of death was in the hands of 
petty provincial tyrants ; but the penal code now in force, 
introduced in 1840, is a great improvement on the old penal 
laws. The first article of this code declares " that the Sul- 
tan promises not to inflict death upon any subject who has 
not been tried by competent judges, and condemned ac- 
cording to established law; and threatens with capital 
punishment any Vizier who shall henceforth take the life of 
a subject on his own responsibility." Capital punishment 
is inflicted for exciting Ottomans to revolt, and for assas- 
sination. Robbery is punished with imprisonment; and 
periods of confinement or banishment are awarded to public 
officers who fail to discharge their functions honestly. 
Every subject of the Sultan is by this law equal in the eyes 
of the judge without regard to race or religion. The fa- 
mous decrees regulating the powers of the government 
officers, the administration of the national treasury, and the 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, &C. 



317 



organization of the police were published in 1846. The 
administration of the Pashas is generally oppressive and 
destructive, yet the system of the government is by no 
means tyrannical, and in some respects is wise and tolerant 
to a degree which may afford an example to or excite the 
envy of many of the Christian powers. In 1850 the 
Turkish government, pursuing its measures of reform, issued 
a new commercial code of laws, of three hundred and fifteen 
articles, regulating the internal and external trade of the 
empire. 

These enlightened decrees, coupled with that great re- 
form made in the educational establishments of the Ottoman 
empire, are calculated to produce a most important and 
beneficial revolution in the state. On the first of Septem- 
ber 1845, the first stone of a great Turkish university was 
laid on the site of the old barrack of the Janizaries. Edu- 
cation was taken from the hands of the Mahometan priest- 
hood, and the children began to be taught the great truths 
of the world. Every Turk must send his child to school, 
and the state charges itself with his instruction. Thus when 
the child of a Turk has reached its sixth year, the father is 
compelled to present himself before the moukhtar or muni- 
cipal chief of his locality, and to inscribe the child's name on 
the register of the Mekteb, or primary school, unless he can 
satisfactorily prove that he has the intention and means of 
giving his progeny instruction proper to his age at home. 
To enforce this law among the labouring population, no em- 
ployer is allowed to take a boy as apprentice who is not 
furnished with a certificate from his mekteb, declaring that 
he has gone through the prescribed studies. These studies 
consist of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the princi- 
ples of religion and morals. In 1851 there were no fewer 
than three hundred and ninety-six mektebs in Constanti- 
nople, mustering twenty -two thousand seven hundred 
scholars. These mektebs are divided into fourteen groups 
with a committee for each group, charged with the duty of 
inspecting each mekteb, and regulating each and recording 
its progress. 

Other schools are established at the expense of the state 
for more advanced youths, and are of recent creation ; yet, 



318 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



in 1851, the six then established included eight hundred and 
seventy scholars. In these schools a Turkish boy is taught 
the Arab grammar and syntax, orthography, composition, 
sacred history, Ottoman history, univeral history, geography, 
arithmetic, and the elements of geometry. The learning 
which flourishes in the Turkish university includes all those 
studies in vogue throughout the universities of Europe. To 
the schools of the government have recently been added 
separate academies for the study of agriculture and veteri- 
nary science. 

These reforms have encountered great opposition from the 
party who esteem themselves the orthodox Mussulmans, the 
stronghold of which is in the Ulemas. Their material 
interests and power are concerned in the question ; and this 
selfishness and bigotry can only be rooted out by the pro- 
gress of learning. 

Perhaps the most important establishment in Turkey is 
the Greek Commercial school at Halki. This school sprung 
up in 1849, and has rapidly increased in importance and 
reputation. It now numbers one hundred and eighty 
scholars ; and at present there is not sufficient room to lodge 
all the candidates for admission. The students are nearly 
all of the higher order, or better sort of merchants' sons, 
and they pay about thirty pounds a-year, including every 
extra. The utmost attention is paid to their instruction, 
diet, and general comfort, and their recreation and discipline 
are of the most liberal and enlightened kind. French and 
English are taught ; but no boy is allowed to learn those 
languages until he has completed his preparatory studies. 
" In the school of Halki,'*' says a modern writer, " the travel- 
ler will find better means of judging of the future prospects 
of the vast empire of Turkey, than in the cabinet of princes, 
or at the dinner tables of ambassadors/* 

The whole range of profane history does not record so 
important a change, as that wrought in the East by Mahomet. 
Indulging in the sensuality of his countrymen, he licensed 
polygamy and concubinage in the Koran ; and even pro- 
pagated revelations from heaven to sanction his private 
excesses and sensuality. In the dexterous adaptation of the 
edicts of the Koran to the existing state of religion and 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, &C. 



319 



morals of the East, and to the powerful hold which, by its 
seeming simplicity, it acquired over his followers, and the 
seductive allurements of its indulgences, may be attributed 
the local success of Islamism over Christianity, — partly^, also 
because the truth and light of the gospel had been corrupt- 
ed by an admixture of idolatrous rites, and supplanted by 
spurious gospel traditions and legends, which no subse- 
quent reformation either of doctrine or teaching could be 
brought to correct or sustain. 

The doctrines of the Koran are a wild and incongruous 
mass of truth and fable, religious feeling and impiety ; yet 
it indicates a very accurate knowledge of human nature, and 
a just perception of the nature of the people for whom it was in- 
tended. In place of the allegories of paganism, the high spir- 
itualities of Christianity, and the typical ritual of Judaism, it 
offers to the contemplation of its votaries the most fascinating 
ideas of voluptuous enjoyment, in a material paradise. The 
sublimity of the most of the finest parts of the Koran may be 
traced to the language of the scriptures, and its doctrines are 
a compound of Christianity, of selections from Talmudic 
legends, apocryphal gospels, and fragments from oriental 
traditions and doctrines. These were clothed in the purest 
Arabic dialect, and embued with an unrivalled excellence 
of composition, disclaiming all mysteries in religion, and 
maintaining the simple unity of God, and divine mission of 
Mahomet, as the last of the prophets, sent to close and per- 
fect all foregoing revelations. 6 

While the tenets of Mahomet thus pandered to the preju- 
dices and reigning vices of the world by its sensual rewards 
and indulgences — w T hile it wielded the sword of persecution 
in one hand and the Koran in the other, it cannot excite 
wonder that Christianity should have withered like a plant 
in an arid soil. Its doctrines and rewards are alike suited 
to a sensual people. Its intolerance engenders a spirit of 
pride and of unbending hostility against all the rest of man- 
kind, whether Pagans, Jews, or Christians ; while its pre- 
cepts breathe an arbitrary and despotic sway over the lives 
and properties of men. It fosters ignorance by discrediting 
whatever is not contained in the revelations of the Koran, 
thus shutting up against its followers every avenue to im- 



320 



HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



provement. Moreover it creates an apathy by its chilling 
tenet of fatalism. 

The confirmation of this statement and the effects of 
Mahometanism may be found in considering the social and 
political condition of the people, and the state of the provin- 
ces which have fallen under its yoke. The deserts of the 
once fertile and populous regions of Asia Minor, and those 
solitudes which once teemed with plenty, exhibit its results. 
The Turks themselves are a monument of its degrading in- 
fluence. The sad destiny of Jerusalem, of Ephesus, of Da- 
mascus, and Antioch, and countless numbers of illustrious 
cities once the glory of the East, have become a wasted 
prey, and their greatness remains only in the memory of 
the past. The Turks, as has already been stated, early 
adopted this religion; and their rapid career of greatness 
and decay, can closely be traced to the doctrines of the 
Koran. 

The large and civilising spirit of true Christianity is not 
only shown in the liberal and enlightened views which 
direct the legislators of a country, but is to be traced as well 
through all the other channels of thought, and of manufac- 
turing and productive industry. Its law-giving character 
at once destroys every germ of superstition which would 
oppose itself to improvement, and conducts the mind to the 
discovery of new and profounder truths which are but the 
harbingers of further advancement. Accordingly, when the 
spirit of discovery is awakened in the sciences, it anon de- 
velopes itself in the direction of the arts. It is thus that 
the broad and far-seeing genius of Christianity originates 
progress in every direction. It is assimilated in its nature 
to the constitution of the universe, and gradually unfolds 
the principles which regulate the material world, and directs 
the eye of investigation to the mysterious nature of the 
human mind itself. Thus Christianity is not merely a code 
of religious and moral truth adapted to the mental constitu- 
tion of man, but it is an intellectual organon or method of 
thinking, infinitely larger and profounder than those of 
Aristotle or Bacon, out of whose bosom has sprung all that 
is great and good in modern philosophy, science, literature, 
and manners. How different is the case with Islamism! 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, RELIGION, &C. 321 

The promises of sensual and sensuous enjoyment held out 
in the Koran, and the principles of fatalism inculcated by 
its doctrines, may give rise to personal bravery in its ad- 
herents, but out of it can spring no new truth. These and 
its other doctrines are grossly empirical and strikingly at 
variance with the higher principles of man s nature, and 
hence, instead of expanding, they blind his intellectual and 
moral vision. Looking at the universe through the eyes of 
the Koran, the Mussulman can see nothing but a dark and 
invariable fatality, and hence discovery or progress is not 
possible for him. Thus while Christianity is in harmony 
with the profoundest physical and moral truths, the religion 
of Mahomet touches no such inquiries, but sets up the im- 
penetrable barrier of fatalism against all investigation. 
Hence the progress that has been made in the sciences and 
arts of life, by Christian and civilized Europe, while the 
Mussulman in point of true civilization has remained for a 
thousand years nearly stationary. With the exception of 
what he has imported from Christian Europe he has made 
no advancement; he has no true philosophy, poetry or 
literature, and his disappearance before the enlightening 
spirit of Christianity is just as certain as any natural event in 
the material world. 

There are no people on earth, about whose ^character so 
contradictory opinions have been expressed as that of the 
Turks. By some they are held up as patterns for imitation; 
by others as objects of abhorrence. Both are perhaps 
equally wrong. The Turks vary very considerably in the 
different provinces, and also in the towns and villages ; but 
their general character partakes of the nature of their 
government and religion. As compared with the people of 
Western Europe, they are proud, morose, and austere; and 
the natural effect of a purely despotic government is to 
render those who fall immediately under its influence, fawn- 
ing, deceitful, and selfish. That they are brave and deter- 
mined, no one need be told; but it is not equally well 
known, says a celebrated historian, how worthy they are, 
and how many excellent traits of character are revealed in 
their private life. Fearless, honest, and trustworthy, their 
word is their bond, and they are destitute of the restless 

x 



322 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

spirit and envious disposition which so often in West* 
Europe and in America, at once disturb happiness and p: 
voke to crime. They are temperate, charitable, sober, a 
cleanly; and there are many virtues common to the Tin 
that would do honour to any nation. In their villag 
where there is no admixture of Greeks, innocence of ] 
and simplicity of manners are conspicuous, and roguery a 
deceit are unknown. Inactivity is their great characterisi 
repose their chief enjoyment. Although sensual in th 
ideas of pleasure, they are moderate in its enjoyments ; a 
starting from the lap of luxuriousness, they submit to 1 
severest privations without grumbling. They are gc 
relatives and husbands, and polygamy is far from bei 
general among them. A harem is to most of them oi 
an object of luxury and ostentation. Satisfied, if wealtl 
with his own harem, which combines the idea of home a 
pleasure, the Turk has generally no ambition to inv? 
that of his neighbour ft and the enormous mass of fern 
profligacy which infests the great cities of Western Eurc 
is unknown. Nothing excites the horror of the Osmai 
so much as the details of the foundling hospitals, and fe 
ful multitude of natural children .in Vienna and Par 
They cannot conceive how society can exist under such 
accumulation of evils. Though capable, when roused eitl 
by religious fanaticism or military excitement, of the m 
frightful deeds of cruelty, they are far, in ordinary li 
from being of a savage disposition. They are kind to th 
wives, passionately fond of their children, charitable to i 
poor, and even extend their benevolent feeling to dui 
animals. Their friendship is sometimes exalted to herois 
their courage daring and chivalrous, and at other times 
manifests itself in a stoical indifference. 



EDINBURGH : 
FTJLLARTON AND MACNAB, PRINTERS, LE1TH WALK. 



LBAg'26 



